Arquitectura moderna-----autor----Alan colquhoun

Alan Colquhoun was born in 1921 andstudied architecture in Edinburgh andLondon. He was in partnership with J. H. Miller from 1961 until 1988. He iscurrently Professor Emeritus in theSchool of Architecture at Princeton

University. His other publicationsinclude Essays in Architecture: ModernArchitecture and Historical Change andModernity and the Classical Tradition:Architectural Essays 1980‒1987.

Modern Architecture

Oxford History ofArt

WESTERN ARTArchaic and ClassicalGreek ArtRobin OsborneClassical ArtFrom Greece to RomeMary Beard & John HendersonImperial Rome andChristian TriumphJas ElsnerEarly Medieval ArtLawrence NeesMedieval ArtVeronica SekulesArt in Renaissance ItalyEvelyn WelchNorthern European ArtSusie Nash

Early Modern ArtNigel LlewellynArt in Europe 1700–1830Matthew CraskeModern Art 1851–1929Richard BrettellAfter Modern Art1945–2000David HopkinsContemporary Art

WESTERNARCHITECTUREGreek ArchitectureDavid SmallRoman ArchitectureJanet DelaineEarly MedievalArchitectureRoger StalleyMedieval ArchitectureNicola ColdstreamRenaissance ArchitectureChristy AndersonBaroque and RococoArchitectureHilary BallonEuropean Architecture1750–1890Barry Bergdoll

Modern ArchitectureAlan ColquhounContemporaryArchitectureAnthony VidlerArchitecture in the UnitedStatesDell Upton

WORLD ARTAegean Art andArchitectureDonald Preziosi & Louise HitchcockEarly Art and Architectureof AfricaPeter GarlakeAfrican ArtJohn PictonContemporary African ArtOlu OguibeAfrican-American ArtSharon F. PattonNineteenth-CenturyAmerican ArtBarbara GrosecloseTwentieth-CenturyAmerican ArtErika DossAustralian ArtAndrew SayersByzantine ArtRobin CormackArt in ChinaCraig ClunasEast European ArtJeremy HowardAncient Egyptian ArtMarianne Eaton-KraussIndian ArtPartha MitterIslamic ArtIrene BiermanJapanese ArtKaren BrockMelanesian ArtMichael O’HanlonMesoamerican ArtCecelia Klein

Native North AmericanArtJanet Berlo & Ruth PhillipsPolynesian andMicronesian ArtAdrienne KaepplerSouth-East Asian ArtJohn GuyLatin American Art

WESTERN DESIGNTwentieth-Century DesignJonathan WoodhamAmerican DesignJeffrey MeikleNineteenth-CenturyDesignGillian NaylorFashionChristopher Breward

PHOTOGRAPHYThe PhotographGraham ClarkeAmerican PhotographyMiles OrvellContemporaryPhotography

WESTERN SCULPTURESculpture 1900–1945Penelope CurtisSculpture Since 1945Andrew Causey

THEMES AND GENRESLandscape and WesternArtMalcolm Andrews PortraitureShearer West Eroticism and ArtAlyce MahonBeauty and ArtElizabeth PrettejohnWomen in Art

REFERENCE BOOKSThe Art of Art History: A Critical AnthologyDonald Preziosi (ed.)

Oxford History of ArtTitles in the Oxford History of Art series are up-to-date, fully illustrated introductions toa wide variety of subjects written by leading experts in their field. They will appearregularly, building into an interlocking and comprehensive series. In the list below,published titles appear in bold.

Oxford History ofArt

ModernArchitecture

Alan Colquhoun

1

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Contents

Acknowledgements 7

Introduction 9

Chapter 1 Art Nouveau 1890–1910 13

Chapter 2 Organicism versus Classicism: Chicago 1890–1910 35

Chapter 3 Culture and Industry: Germany 1907–14 57

Chapter 4 The Urn and the Chamberpot: Adolf Loos 1900–30 73

Chapter 5 Expressionism and Futurism 87

Chapter 6 The Avant-gardes in Holland and Russia 109

Chapter 7 Return to Order: Le Corbusier and Modern Architecture

in France 1920–35 137

Chapter 8 Weimar Germany: the Dialectic of the Modern 1920–33 159

Chapter 9 From Rationalism to Revisionism: Architecture in

Italy 1920–65 183

Chapter 10 Neoclassicism, Organicism, and the Welfare State:

Architecture in Scandinavia 1910–65 193

Chapter 11 From Le Corbusier to Megastructures:

Urban Visions 1930–65 209

Chapter 12 Pax Americana: Architecture in America 1945–65 231

Notes 255

Further Reading 264

Timeline 270

List of Illustrations 277

Index 282

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Many people have—knowingly or unknowingly—contributed to themaking of this book. But, for reading and commenting upon variouschapters I am particularly indebted to Jean-Louis Cohen, Esther DaCosta Meyer, Hubert Damisch, Hal Foster, Jacques Gubler, RobertGutman, Michael J. Lewis, Sarah Linford, Steven A. Mansbach,Arno Mayer, Guy Nordensen, Antoine Picon, and Mark Wigley. Iowe a special debt of gratitude to Mary McLeod, who read and offeredvaluable advice on the entire manuscript, and to John Farnham andCan Bilsel for their help, both practical and intellectual, at crucialmoments in its preparation. I would also like to thank my editors atOxford University Press, Simon Mason and Katherine Reeve, for theiradvice and encouragement. Last but not least, I would like to thankFrances Chen and her staff in the library of the Princeton UniversitySchool of Architecture, for their unfailing kindness and help.

During the preparation of the book I received a generous scholar-ship from the Simon Guggenheim Foundation and a Senior SamuelH. Kress Fellowship at the Center for the Study of the Visual Arts,the National Gallery, Washington, DC, both of which I gratefullyacknowledge.

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Acknowledgements

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The term ‘modern architecture’ is ambiguous. It can be understood torefer to all buildings of the modern period regardless of their ideolog-ical basis, or it can be understood more specifically as an architectureconscious of its own modernity and striving for change. It is in thelatter sense that it has generally been defined in histories of contem-porary architecture, and the present book follows this tradition.Already in the early nineteenth century, there was wide dissatisfactionwith eclecticism among architects, historians, and critics. This well-documented attitude justifies a history of modern architectureconcerned primarily with reformist, ‘avant-garde’ tendencies, ratherthan one that attempts to deal with the whole of architectural produc-tion as if it operated within a non-ideological, neutral field.

It is in the space between the idealist utopias of the historical avant-gardes and the resistances, complexities, and pluralities of capitalistculture that this book seeks to situate itself. Though not attempting tobe in any way encyclopedic, the narrative follows an overall chronolog-ical sequence, and tries to be, perhaps, less certain in its outcome andless triumphalist than those of most previous histories of modernism.The book consists of a number of essays that can be read either as self-contained narratives or as part of a larger whole, each dealing with acluster of related themes reflecting an important moment in the con-frontation of architecture with the external conditions of modernity. Ifit is still largely a history of the masters, that is because that was thenature of modernism itself, despite its many claims to anonymity.

A word on terminology: I use—more or less interchangeably—theterms ‘modern architecture’, ‘Modernism’, ‘the avant-garde’, to meanthe progressive movements of the 1910s and 1920s as a whole. I alsooccasionally use the term ‘historical avant-garde’, which has the effectof historicizing the movement and distinguishing it from contempo-rary practice. I do not follow Peter Bürger (Theory of the Avant-Garde,1984), who, in the context of Dada photomontage, distinguishesbetween an avant-garde that sought to change the status of art withinthe relations of production and a Modernism that sought only tochange its forms. That these two polar positions can be applied toarchitecture is undeniable. But the line between them is hard to define,

9

Introduction

and even the work of the Left Constructivists and Marxists like HannesMeyer does not, in my opinion, escape aestheticism. This is hardly sur-prising, since, before it could be separated from the classical–academictheory of the arts, aesthetics had first to become an autonomous cate-gory. Apart from the general terms mentioned above—which are usefulprecisely because of their semantic vagueness—other terms are used,either to define well-attested sub-movements, such as Futurism, Con-structivism, De Stijl, L’Esprit Nouveau, and the Neue Sachlichkeit(New Objectivity), or migratory tendencies within the overall phe-nomenon of modernism, such as organicism, neoclassicism,Expressionism, functionalism, and rationalism. I have tried to explainwhat I mean by these slippery terms in the appropriate chapters.

From a certain perspective, general terms such as ‘modernism’ canalso be applied to Art Nouveau—as, indeed, the temporal span of thisbook implies. To try to avoid such ambiguities would be to makeunsustainable claims for logic. Art Nouveau was both the end and thebeginning of an era, and its achievements as well as its limitations werethe result of this Janus-like perspective.

Many aspects of Modernist theory still seem valid today. But muchin it belongs to the realm of myth, and is impossible to accept at facevalue. The myth itself has now become history, and demands criticalinterpretation. One of the main ideas motivating the protagonists ofthe Modern Movement was the Hegelian notion that the study ofhistory made it possible to predict its future course. But it is scarcelypossible any longer to believe—as the Modernist architects appear tohave believed—that the architect is a kind of seer, uniquely gifted withthe power of discerning the spirit of the age and its symbolic forms.Such a belief was predicated on the possibility of projecting the condi-tions of the past onto the present. For progressive-minded architects ofthe nineteenth century and their twentieth-century successors, itseemed essential to create a unified architectural style that would reflectits age, just as previous styles had reflected theirs. This meant the rejec-tion of an academic tradition that had degenerated into eclecticism,imprisoned in a history that had come to an end and whose forms couldonly be endlessly recycled. It did not imply a rejection of tradition assuch. The architecture of the future would return to the true tradition,in which, it was believed, a harmonious and organic unity had existedbetween all the cultural phenomena of each age. In the great historicalperiods artists had not been free to choose the style in which theyworked. Their mental and creative horizons had been circumscribed bya range of forms that constituted their entire universe. The artist cameinto a world already formed. The study of history seemed to reveal thatthese periods constituted indivisible totalities. On the one hand, therewere elements unique to each period; on the other, the organic unitythat bound these elements together was itself a universal. The new age

10 introduction

must exhibit the cultural totality characteristic of all historical periods.The question was never asked how a cultural totality, which by defi-

nition had depended on an involuntary collective will, could now beachieved voluntarily by a number of individuals. Nor did it ever seem tohave occurred to those who held this view that what separated the pastfrom the present might be precisely the absence of this inferred organicunity. According to the model of the organic unity of culture, the task ofthe architect was first to uncover and then create the unique forms ofthe age. But the possibility of such an architecture depended on a defin-ition of modernity that filtered out the very factors that differentiated itmost strongly from earlier traditions: capitalism and industrialization.William Morris, the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, hadrejected both capitalism and machine production, a position that was atleast consistent. But the theorists of the German Werkbund, while theyrejected capitalism, wanted to retain industrialization. They con-demned what they saw as the materialistic values of both Marxism andWestern liberal democracy, but sought an alternative that wouldcombine the benefits of modern technology with a return to the pre-industrial community values that capitalism was in the process ofdestroying. The Modern Movement was both an act of resistance tosocial modernity and an enthusiastic acceptance of an open technologi-cal future. It longed for a world of territorial and social fixity, while atthe same time embracing, incompatibly, an economy and technology influx. It shared this belief in a mythical ‘third way’ between capitalismand communism with the Fascist movements of the 1930s, and thoughit would be completely wrong to brand it with the crimes of Fascism, itis surely no accident that the period of its greatest intensity coincidedwith the anti-democratic, totalitarian political movements that weresuch a dominant feature of the first half of the twentieth century.

The conclusion would seem inescapable that the cultural unity andshared artistic standards—whether deriving from folk or from aristo-cratic traditions—demanded by the modern movement from itsinception were increasingly out of step with the political and economicrealities of the twentieth century. Based on an idealist and teleologicalconception of history, modernist theory seems radically to have mis-read the very Zeitgeist it had itself invoked, ignoring the complex andindeterminate nature of modern capitalism, with its dispersal of powerand its constant state of movement.

The revolution of modernism—partly voluntary, partly involun-tary—has irrevocably changed the course of architecture. But in theprocess it has itself become transformed. Its totalizing ambitions canno longer be sustained. Yet, the adventure of the Modern Movement isstill capable of acting as an inspiration for a present whose ideals are somuch less clearly defined. It is the aim of this book to sharpen ourimage of that adventure.

introduction 11

Art Nouveau1890-1910

1

1 Victor Horta

View within the octagonalstair hall, Hotel Van Eetvelde,1895, BrusselsThe real structure is maskedby a thin membrane of ironand coloured glass. Thespace is lit from the roof.

In 1892 the short-lived but vigorous Art Nouveau movement waslaunched in Belgium and quickly spread, first to France and then to therest of Europe. Its inspiration came from the English Arts and Craftsmovement and developments in wrought iron technology, particularly asinterpreted by the French architect and theorist, Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814—79). The movement was closely associated with the rise of anew industrial bourgeoisie on the one hand and, on the other, with themany movements for political independence mfin-de-siecle Europe. Itspread rapidly by means of journals such as The Studio, which includedhigh-quality, mass-produced images, made possible by the new print-ing techniques of offset lithography and photolithography which cameinto commercial use in the i88os and 18908.

Art Nouveau was the first systematic attempt to replace the classicalsystem of architecture and the decorative arts that had been handeddown from the seventeenth century and was enshrined in the teachingof the Beaux-Arts academies. The new movement abandoned thepost-Renaissance convention of realism, drawing inspiration fromstyles outside the classical canon—from Japan, from the Middle Ages,and even from Rococo. Though it lasted barely 15 years, many of its pre-cepts were incorporated into the avant-garde movements thatfollowed.

Like all progressive movements of the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, Art Nouveau was caught in an inherentdilemma—how to preserve the historical values of art under condi-tions of industrial capitalism. The Industrial Revolution had radicallyaltered both the individual and the collective conditions of artisticproduction. In the face of this situation Art Nouveau artists andarchitects reacted in a way that would become typical of later avant-gardes: they leapt over recent history to a remote and idealized past inorder to find an art that could be historically justified and yet beabsolutely new.

Although Art Nouveau was preceded and profoundly influencedby the Arts and Crafts movement, the two continued in parallel, eachmodifying the other. In Austria, and to some extent in England, therewas a fusion of the two movements. In Germany the influence of the

13

Arts and Crafts proved the stronger of the two, leading to theDeutscher Werkbund and the alliance between industry and thedecorative arts.

Antecedents

The reform of the industrial artsArt Nouveau was the outcome of a transformation in the industrial, ordecorative, arts that had been initiated in England and France earlierin the nineteenth century. As early as 1835 a parliamentary commissionhad been set up in England to study the problem of the decline in artis-tic quality of machine-made objects and the consequent damage to theexport market. In 1851 a Great Exhibition of Industry of all Nationswas organized in London, following a similar but abortive project inFrance. (France had led the way in industrial exhibitions but these hadbeen exclusively national.) The Great Exhibition was a huge commer-cial and political success, but it confirmed the low quality of decorativeproducts not only in England but in all the industrial countries, com-pared to those of the East. This realization prompted a succession ofinitiatives both in England and France . In England, the Victoria andAlbert Museum and the Department of Practical Art were founded in1852, and a spate of books on the decorative arts appeared, includingthe influential Grammar of Ornament (1856) by Owen Jones (1809–74).In France, the Comité central des beaux-arts appliqués à l’industriewas founded (also in 1852), followed by the Union centrale des beaux-arts appliqués à l’ndustrie (1864), which later became the Unioncentrale des arts décoratifs.

Though originating from the same concerns, these institutionalreforms resulted in a different development in each country. InEngland, after the government initiatives of the 1830s, the reform ofthe arts became a private affair, dominated by a single individual, theartist and poet William Morris (1834–96). For Morris, as for thephilosopher-critic John Ruskin (1819–1900), the reform of the indus-trial arts was impossible under the present conditions of industrialcapitalism by which the artist was alienated from the product of hislabour. In 1861, he set up the firm of Morris, Marshall, and Faulkner tocreate a context for artists to relearn the various crafts under conditionsas near as possible to those of the medieval guilds. Morris’s initiativewas followed up by others, creating what was to become known as theArts and Crafts movement.

The situation in France was different. First there was a politicallyinfluential art establishment, based on the Academy, fundamentallyconservative, but aware of the need for reform and eager to promote it.1

Secondly, the abolition of the guilds during the French Revolution had

14 art nouveau 1890‒1910

not destroyed artisanal traditions in France as thoroughly as theIndustrial Revolution had those of England. When they began experi-menting with new techniques and forms in the 1870s, artists andcraftsmen working in the decorative arts such as Eugène Rousseau(1827–91), Felix Bracquemond (1833–1914), and Emile Gallé (1846–1904)were able to build upon existing craft traditions. The ultimate model forboth English and French artists was the medieval guild, but in Francethis model was combined with the more recent domestic tradition ofRococo.

Viollet-le-Duc and structural rationalismThe Arts and Crafts movement and its off-shoot, the English ‘free-style’ house were to have a considerable influence on the developmentof Art Nouveau. But there was another influence at work as well—theuse of iron as an expressive architectural medium. The role of iron inarchitecture had been central to the debates between traditionalist andprogressive–positivist architects in France throughout the nineteenthcentury. The debate was stimulated by the projects of the Saint-Simonian engineers and entrepreneurs who were largely responsiblefor laying down the French technical infrastructure in the 1840s and1850s, and by discussions in the progressive magazine Revue del’Architecture under the editorship of César-Denis Daly (1811–93). Butit was chiefly through the theories and designs of Viollet-le-Duc thatiron became associated with the reform of the decorative arts, and thatan idealist decorative movement became grafted onto the positiviststructural tradition.

The career of Viollet-le-Duc had been devoted to the distillation ofthe rational and vitalistic core of Gothic architecture, which he saw asthe only true basis for a modern architecture. The main preceptsViollet bequeathed to the Art Nouveau movement were: the exposureof the armature of a building as a visually logical system; the spatialorganization of its parts according to function rather than to rules ofsymmetry and proportion; the importance of materials and theirproperties as generators of form; the concept of organic form, derivingfrom the Romantic movement; and the study of vernacular domesticarchitecture.

Through two of his many books, Entretiens sur l’Architecture(Lectures on Architecture) and the Dictionnaire Raisonné de l’ArchitectureFrançaise (Dictionary of French Architecture), Viollet-le-Duc becamethe rallying point for all those opposed to the Beaux-Arts. This wastrue not only in France, where ‘alternative ateliers’ were set up (thoughthese were soon reabsorbed into the Beaux-Arts system),2 but alsoelsewhere in Europe and in North America. His influence on the ArtNouveau movement came from both his theory and his designs.

art nouveau 1890‒1910 15

SymbolismMost historians3 agree that important changes took place in the intel-lectual climate of Western Europe in the last two decades of thenineteenth century. The century had been dominated by a belief inprogress made possible by science and technology, a belief that foundits philosophical formulation in the movement known as Positivismfounded by Auguste Comte (1798–1857). In literature and art it wasNaturalism that corresponded most closely to the prevailing Positivistframe of mind. But by the 1880s belief in Positivism had begun toerode, together with the faith in liberal politics that had supportedit. Several political events no doubt contributed to this phenomenon,including the terrible European economic depression that beganin 1873.

In France, the home of Positivism, the change of intellectualclimate was especially noticeable, and it was accompanied by a signifi-cant increase in the influence of German philosophy. In literature, theSymbolist movement led the attack. The Symbolists held that artshould not imitate appearances but should reveal an essential underly-ing reality. This idea had been anticipated by Baudelaire, whose poemCorrespondences (which incorporated Emanuel Swedenborg’s theory ofsynaesthesia, though probably unknowingly), gives voice to the ideathat the arts are intimately related to each other at a profound level:‘like long echoes which from afar become confused . . . Perfumes,colours, and sounds respond to each other.’ In describing the move-ment, the Belgian Symbolist poet Emile Verhaeren compared Germanto French thought, to the detriment of the latter: ‘In Naturalism [isfound] the French philosophy of the Comtes and the Littrés; in[Symbolism] the German philosophy of Kant and Fichte . . . In thelatter, the fact and the world become a mere pretext for the idea; theyare treated as appearance, condemned to incessant variability, appear-ing ultimately as dreams in our mind.’4 The Symbolists did not rejectthe natural sciences, but looked on science as the verification of subjec-tive states of mind. As one contributor (probably Verhaeren) to theSymbolist journal L’Art Moderne said: ‘Since the methods that wereformerly instinctive have become scientific . . . a change has been pro-duced in the personality of artists.’5

Art Nouveau in Belgium and France

Underlying formal principlesThe characteristic motif of Art Nouveau is a flowing plant-like form ofthe kind first found in English book illustration and French ceramic


2 Eugène RousseauJardinière, 1887The ornament seems to growout of the body, rather thanbeing added to it.Naturalistic representation issacrificed to an overall formalconcept.

work of the 1870s and 1880s [2].6 Common to these proto-ArtNouveau works was the principle that in ornament the imitation ofnature should be subordinated to the organization of the plane surface.In his book Du dessin et de la couleur (Drawing and Colour), published in1885, the ceramicist Felix Bracquemond defined the new concept in thefollowing terms: ‘Ornament does not necessarily copy nature evenwhen it borrows from her . . . Its infidelity to her . . . [is] due to the factthat it is solely concerned with embellishing surfaces, that it dependson the materials it has to adorn, on the forms it has to follow withoutaltering them.’7

In Art Nouveau, this ‘functional’ dependency of ornament led to aparadoxical reversal. Instead of merely obeying the form of the object,ornament began to merge with the object, animating it with new life.This had two effects: first, the object became thought of as a singleorganic entity rather than as an aggregation of separate parts, as in theclassical tradition; second, ornament was no longer thought of as ‘spacefilling’, and a dialogue was set up between two positive values—orna-ment and empty space. The discovery of what might be called ‘spatialsilence’—probably mainly derived from Japanese prints—was one ofArt Nouveau’s chief contributions to modern Western aesthetics.

In this redefinition, the accepted boundary between ornament andform became blurred. The classical attitude had been that ornamentwas a supplementary form of beauty. It was the German archaeologistKarl Bötticher (1806–89) who first suggested that ornament (Kunst-form) was organically related to the underlying substance of the object,giving the inert mechanical structure (Kernform) the semblance oforganic life—an idea later used by Gottfried Semper (1803–79) in hisbook Der Stil.8 Though Art Nouveau was obviously not the direct result


of this theory, which was developed in the context of Greek antiquity, itseems to be derived from the same nexus of ideas. The ornament on achair by Henry van de Velde (1863–1957) not only completes the struc-ture, the two become indistinguishable, the product of an artistic willstriving for total symbolic expression [3]. In his book Formules de laBeauté Architectonique Moderne (Principles of Modern ArchitectonicBeauty) of 1917, Van de Velde described this fusion of subjective andobjective, of ornament and structure, in the following terms:

Ornament completes form, of which it is the extension, and we recognize themeaning and justification of ornament in its function. This function consistsin ‘structuring’ the form and not in adorning it . . . The relations between the‘structural and dynamographic’ ornament and the form or surfaces must be sointimate that the ornament will seem to have determined the form.9

In their desire to extend these principles beyond the isolated object,Art Nouveau designers became preoccupied with the design of wholeinteriors. In many rooms and ensembles individual pieces of furnituretended to lose their identity and become absorbed into a larger spatialand plastic unity [4].

BrusselsArt Nouveau first emerged in Belgium, within the ambience of apoliticized and anarchist Symbolist movement in close touch with theParti Ouvrier Belge (POB, founded 1885). The leaders of the POB—

3 Henry van de VeldeChair, 1896This chair demonstrates Vande Velde’s theory of theintegration of ornament andstructure. Taut curves anddiagonals predominate,suggesting a structure indynamic balance. Thedifferent parts of the chairflow into each other.


4 Henry van de VeldeHavana Cigar Shop, 1899,BerlinThough this room, with itsheavy, bulging forms and itsindifference to practicalfunctionality, could only beby Van de Velde, it doesillustrate a characteristicfeature of the Art Nouveauinterior—the absorption ofindividual objects into adominant plastic unity.

for example, the lawyers Emile Vandervelde and Jules Destrée—hadintimate ties with the literary and artistic avant-garde. An educationalprogramme of cultural events was organized by the Section d’Art ofthe POB’s Maison du Peuple (for example, Emile Verhaeren’s play LesAubes received its first performance there in 1897). Influenced byWilliam Morris, the Belgian Symbolist journal L’Art Moderne,founded in 1885 by Octave Maus and Edmund Picard, increasinglyadvocated the application of art to daily life.

In 1892, Willy Finch (1854–1936) and Henry van de Velde, membersof the painters’ group Les XX, inaugurated a decorative art movementbased on the English Arts and Crafts Society. A year later the salon ofLes XX devoted two rooms to the decorative arts, which were therebyassociated with the fine arts rather than the industrial arts. Les XX wassuperseded by Libre Esthétique in 1894. At the group’s first salon, Vande Velde delivered a series of lectures which were published under thetitle Déblaiement d’Art (The Purification of Art) and established him asthe ideologue of the movement. In these lectures Van de Velde fol-lowed Morris in defining art as the expression of joy in work, but unlikeMorris he recognized the necessity of machine production—a contra-diction that he was never able to resolve.

Influential as these lectures were in spreading the movement andproviding it with a theoretical apparatus, two other figures were ofgreater importance in establishing its formal language. The first ofthese, the Liège-based architect and furniture designer Gustave Ser-rurier-Bovy (1858–1910), had been the first to introduce the work of theArts and Crafts movement into Belgium. He exhibited two rooms inthe 1894 and 1895 Libre Esthétique salons, a ‘Cabinet de Travail’ and a


‘Chambre d’Artisan’, both characterized by a simplicity and sobrietysimilar to the Arts and Crafts movement. Serrurier-Bovy’s work repre-sents a distinct thread in Belgian Art Nouveau which idealizedvernacular building and advocated a simple rural lifestyle.10

The second figure was Victor Horta (1861–1947) whose backgrounddiffered from that of both Van de Velde and Serrurier. After receiving aBeaux-Arts architectural training, Horta spent over ten years workingin a neoclassical style, slightly modified by Viollet-le-Duc’s construc-tional rationalism. But in 1893—already in his thirties—he designed aprivate house of startling originality for Emile Tassel, professor ofdescriptive geometry at the Université Libre of Brussels and a fellowfreemason. This was the first in a series of houses that he built formembers of the Belgian professional elite, in which he combinedViollet-le-Duc’s principle of exposed metal structure with ornamentalmotifs derived from the French and English decorative arts.

The hôtels Tassel, Solvay, and Van Eetvelde [1 (see page 12), 5], all5 Victor HortaFirst-floor plan, Hôtel VanEetvelde, 1895, BrusselsThis floor is dominated by theoctagonal stair hall, throughwhich the occupants mustpass when moving from onereception room to another.


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designed between 1892 and 1895, present an ingenious range ofsolutions to typical narrow Brussels sites. In each, the plan was dividedfrom front to back into three sections, the central section containing atop-lit staircase which became the visual and social hub of the house. Ineach, the piano nobile consisted of a suite of reception rooms and con-servatories with a spatial fluidity that was accentuated by extensive useof glass and mirror, somewhat recalling the theatre foyers built in Brus-sels in the 1880s by Alban Chambon (1847–1928).11 The houses wereintended for social display. In his memoirs Horta described the HôtelSolvay as ‘a dwelling like any other . . . but with an interior character-ized by an exposed metal structure and a series of glass screens giving anextended perspective . . . for evening receptions’.12 But this descriptiongives no idea of the sensuous and intimate language in which this socialfunction was embodied, spreading a veil over the ‘architectural-real’,dissolving structure into ornament. An imaginary world—halfmineral, half vegetal—is created, with an air of unreality enhanced bythe timeless, subaqueous light filtering down from the roof.

Horta’s most important public building was the new Maison duPeuple in Brussels of 1896–9 (demolished 1965). He received this com-mission through his domestic clients, whose social milieu and socialistideals he shared. As in the houses, the Beaux-Arts symmetry of theplan is carefully undermined by asymmetrical programmatic elements.The façade, though it appears to be a smooth undulating skin follow-ing an irregular site boundary, is in fact a classical compositionarranged round a shallow exhedra. Nonetheless, because of its continu-ous glazing (and in spite of its allusion to the heavily glazed FlemishRenaissance buildings to be found in Brussels) it must have had ashocking effect when it was built.

If architecture was a passion for Horta, for Van de Velde (who wastrained as a painter) it was more the logical culmination of the ‘house-hold of the arts’ (the phrase is Rumohr’s).13 Starting from 1896, heexhibited a number of interiors at the Libre Esthétique salon, influ-enced by Serrurier’s rooms. In 1895 he built a house called‘Bloemenwerf ’ for his family, in Uccle, a suburb of Brussels, in whichhe set out to create a domestic environment where daily life could beinfused with art—he even designed his wife’s clothes. This house wasa prototype for the villas built in the Utopian artists’ colonies thatsprang up, mostly in the German-speaking countries, around 1900. Itrepresents a sort of suburban Bohemianism very different from theelegant urban lifestyle catered for by Horta.

Paris and NancyThe Art Nouveau movement in France was closely related to that of Belgium, though it lacked the Belgian movement’s socialist


connotations. The term ‘Art Nouveau’ had been in circulation inBelgium since the 1870s, but it took on a new lease of life when, in 1895,the German connoisseur and art dealer Siegfried (Samuel) Bingopened a gallery in Paris called L’Art Nouveau, for which Van de Veldedesigned three rooms.

In France it was Héctor Guimard (1867–1942), just as in Belgium ithad been Horta, who integrated the new decorative principles into acoherent architectural style. Guimard was not closely associated eitherwith Bing or with the decorative arts institutions in Paris, but his alle-giance to Viollet-le-Duc was even stronger than that of Horta. Twoearly works, the School of Sacré Cœur in Paris (1895) and the Maison

6 Héctor GuimardMaison Coilliot, 1897, LilleThis house appears to be aparaphrase of one of theillustrations in Viollet-le-Duc’s Dictionnaire Raisonné.


Pho

to F

ilipe

Fer

ré, P

aris

7 Lucien Weissenburger24 Rue Lionnais, 1903,NancyThe Gothic references hereare unusually explicit, evenfor a style which owed somuch to the Middle Ages.

Coilliot in Lille (1897) [6], were based on illustrations in Viollet’sEntretiens and the Dictionnaire. After seeing Horta’s houses inBrussels, Guimard was so impressed that he revised the drawings forhis first large-scale work, the apartment building Castel Béranger inParis (1894–98), reworking the stone mouldings and metal details withcurvilinear and plastic forms. In the interior of the Humbert deRomans concert hall (1898, demolished 1905), and in the well-knownentrances to the Paris Métro, Guimard carried the analogy betweenmetal structure and plant form further than anything found in Horta’swork.

The leading figure in the School of Nancy was the glass-worker andceramicist Emile Gallé. His work was based on a craft tradition withits roots in French Rococo—his father, a ceramicist, having rediscov-ered the ceramic moulds used by the Lorraine craftsmen of theeighteenth century. It was, however, highly innovative, deliberatelyplaying on the neurasthenic and ‘decadent’ aspects of the Symbolisttradition.

The architecture of the Nancy School has a distinctly ‘literary’flavour. Two houses built in 1903, one by Emile André (1871–1933) andthe other by Lucien Weissenburger (1860-1928) [7], are suggestive ofcastles in a medieval romance. The slightly earlier house for the ceram-icist Louis Marjorelle by Henri Sauvage (1873–1932), is less dependenton literary associations, more abstract and formal, with solid stonewalls gradually dissolving into a light, transparent superstructure.


Dutch Art Nouveau and the work of H. P. BerlageThe Dutch Art Nouveau movement was split between two opposedgroups, the first inspired by the curvilinear Belgian movement,thesecond associated with the more rationalist circle of Petrus JosephusHubertus Cuijpers (1827^1921) and the Amsterdam group Architecturaet Amicitia. This group's members included H. P. Berlage (1856-1934),K. P. C. Bazel (1896-1923), W. Kromhaut (1864-1940), and J. L. M.Lauweriks (1864-1932), and their affinities lay more with Viollet-le-Ducand the Arts and Crafts movement than with Belgian and French ArtNouveau, of which they were critical.14

After 1890, structural and rationalist tendencies became pro-nounced in the work of Hendrick Petrus Berlage. In both theDiamond Workers' Building in Amsterdam (1899-1900) and theAmsterdam Stock Exchange (1897^-1903), Berlage reduced his earliereclecticism to an astylar neo-Romanesque in which basic volumes arearticulated and structural materials exposed, with Art Nouveau orna-ment used sparingly to emphasize structural junctions. Compared toHorta's Maison du Peuple—also a significant public building—theExchange, with its calm, expansive brick surfaces, reinforces ratherthan subverts the traditional fabric of the Amsterdam with its solidburgher-like values.

In Berlage s private houses we find the same qualities. The plan ofthe Villa Henny in the Hague (1898), like many Arts and Crafts and ArtNouveau houses, is organized round a central top-lit hall. But, unlikethe evanescent metal structure surrounding the central hall of HortasHotel Van Eetvelde, Berlage s hall is defined by a brick arcade [8], withgroin vaults in the spirit of Viollet-le-Duc. The furniture, with itsstructural rigour, anticipates that of De Stijl and the Constructivists.

Modernisme in BarcelonaThe first signs of Modernisme—as Art Nouveau was called inCatalan—seem to pre-date the Belgian movement by several years andthe Catalan movement appears to have been inspired independently bythe publications of Viollet-le-Duc and the Arts and Crafts movement.Modernisme was more closely related to the nineteenth-century eclec-tic tradition than was the Art Nouveau of France and Belgium. In 1888Lluis Domenech i Montaner (1850-1923), the most important architectof early Modernisme, published an article entitled 'En busca de unaarquitectura nacional* ('In Search of a National Architecture'), whichshows the movement's eclectic intentions: 'Let us apply openly theforms which recent experience and needs impose on us, enrichingthem and giving them expressive form through the inspiration of

24 ART NOUVEAU 1890-1910

8 Hendrick Petrus Berlage

The ground floor of the top-l itstair hall, Villa Henny, 1898,the HagueThe solid, exposed-brickstructure makes a strikingcontrast with the lightnessand transparency of theequivalent stair hall inHorta's Hotel Van Eetvelde.

nature and by the ornamental riches offered us by the buildings ofevery period/15

Barcelona had grown at an even faster rate than Brussels in thesecond half of the nineteenth century. The new industrial bourgeoisieof Catalonia—men like Eusebio Giiell and the Marques de Comil-las—saw Modernisme as an urban symbol of national progress, as didArt Nouveau's patrons in Belgium. But, while in Belgium the move-ment was associated with an anti-Catholic international socialism, inCatalonia its affiliations were Catholic, nationalist, and politicallyconservative.

In the early works of the movement, Moorish ('Mudejar') motifswere used to suggest regional identity. This can be seen in the CasaVicens (1878—85) by Antoni Gaudi i Cornet (1852—1926), and theBodegas Giiell (1888) by Francesc Berenguer (1866-1914). Both mixhistoricist 'inventions' with new structural ideas, such as the use ofexposed iron beams and catenary vaults (which Gaudi was also to usein the Sagrada Familia).16

Catalan Modernisme was dominated by the figure of Gaudi, whose

ART NOUVEAU 1890-1910 25

work, however protean, seems to have been based on two simplepremises: the first, derived from Viollet-le-Duc, was that the study ofarchitecture must start from the mechanical conditions of building; thesecond was that the imagination of the architect should be free of allstylistic conventions. Gaudí’s work is often characterized by a kind offree association in which forms suggestive of animal, vegetal or geolog-ical formations appear. In the crypt of the Chapel of the Colonia Güellin Barcelona (1898–1914) [9], the structure imitates the irregular formsof trees or spiders’ webs, as if, like them, it has arrived at rational endsunconsciously. In the unfinished church of the Sagrada Familia, also inBarcelona (begun 1883), the façades look as if they have been erodedthrough millennia or dipped in acid, leaving only the incomprehensibletraces of some forgotten language. The deep cultural and personal anx-ieties that seem to lie behind Gaudí’s architecture were to fascinate theSurrealists in the 1930s. At no other time could such an intimate, sub-jective architecture have become a popular symbol of national identity.

Austria and Germany: from Jugendstil to classicism

ViennaThe concepts that lay behind Symbolism and Art Nouveau were, aswe have seen, strongly influenced by German Romanticism and

9 Antoni GaudíChapel of the Colonia Güell,1898–1914, BarcelonaThe crypt—the only part ofthe chapel to be built. This isone of the most mysteriousand surreal of Gaudí’sbuildings. Gothic structure isreinterpreted in terms of abiological structure that hasgrown incrementally inresponse to its environment.


10 Otto WagnerPost Office Savings Bank,1904–6, ViennaDetail of main banking hall,showing the use of industrialmotifs as metaphors for theabstraction of money inmodern capitalism. In thepublic façade of the samebuilding Wagner usedconventional allegoricalfigures conforming to idealistcodes.

philosophical Idealism. One of the strongest expressions of this ten-dency is found in the writings of the Viennese art historian Alois Riegl(1858–1905).17 According to Riegl, the decorative arts were at the originof all artistic expression. Art was rooted in indigenous culture, notderived from a universal natural law. This idea meshed closely with theideas of John Ruskin and William Morris as well as with the aesthetictheories of Felix Bracquemond and Van de Velde, and it stood in starkcontrast to the idea (derived from the Enlightenment) that archi-tecture should align itself with progress, science, and the Cartesianspirit.

In the context of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the conflictbetween these diametrically opposed concepts was exacerbated by thepolitical struggle between the metropolis, with its liberal and rational-ist programme, and ethnic minorities seeking to assert their ownidentity. For the Slav and Finno-Ugrian-speaking provinces of theempire, the free and unattached style of Art Nouveau became an


11 Otto Wagner

Post Office Savings Bank,1904-6. ViennaThis detail of a light fittingshows its industrialmetaphors.

emblem of political and cultural freedom,18 as in Catalonia, Finland,and the Baltic states.

In Austria, the liberal, rationalist spirit was epitomized by the workof Otto Wagner (1841-1918), the most celebrated architect of the time.Wagner stood on the other side of the ideological divide from theurbanist Camillo Sitte (1843-1903), whose internationally influentialbook, Der Stadtebau nach seinen Kunstlerischen Grundstatzen (CityBuilding According to its Artistic Principles) of 1889, had promoted anurban model of irregular, closed spaces, based on the medieval city. ForWagner, on the contrary, the modern city should consist of a regular,open-ended street grid containing new building types such as apart-ment blocks and department stores.19 In his buildings, Wagner'srationalism reaches its peak in the Post Office Savings Bank in Vienna(1904-6). It is a rationalism, however, that does not abandon the alle-gorical language of classicism but extends it. In the bank we findallegorical figurative ornament: but there are also more abstractmetaphors, such as the redundant bolt-heads on the fa9ade (the thinmarble cladding was in fact mortared to a brick wall). These, like thefunctional glass and metal banking hall, are both symbols and manifes-tations of modernity [10,11],

In 1893 Wagner was appointed director of the School of Archi-tecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts where he came into closecontact with the younger generation of designers. His two most bril-liant students were Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867-1908) and JosefHoffmann (1870-1956). Wagner employed Olbrich as the chief drafts-man on his Stadtbahn (City Railway) project from 1894 to 1898. Dueto Olbrich s influence, decorative motifs derived from Jugendstil (asthe German Art Nouveau movement was called) began to replacetraditional ornament in Wagner's work, though without affecting itsunderlying rational structure—as shown in the Majolica House apart-ment building in Vienna (1898).

The early careers of Olbrich and Hoffman had almost identicaltrajectories. They both belonged to the Wiener Secession (ViennaSecession)—a group that split from the academy in 1897—an<^ bothworked with equal facility in architecture and the decorative arts.Olbrich received the commission for the Secessions headquarters inVienna, and in 1899 the Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse appointedhim as architect for the artists' colony at Darmstadt. In 1903 Hoff-mann—with designer Kolo Moser (1868-1918)—founded the WienerWerkstatte, a furniture workshop modelled on Charles R. Ashbee'sGuild of Handicraft in London, and conceived as a cottage industry.

The Secession marked the introduction of Jugendstil into Austria.But after working in the curvilinear style of high Art Nouveau forabout three years, Olbrich and Hoffmann abandoned Van de Velde'sdynamic integration of ornament with structure and reverted to a more


12 Joseph Maria OlbrichA decorated casket, 1901The neoclassical body of thiscasket, in the form of atruncated pyramid, isdelicately incised and inlaidwith stylized ornament.Empty space plays a positiverole.

rectilinear organization of planar surfaces and geometrical ornament[12]. In this they showed an affinity with both Otto Wagner’s classi-cism and the work of the later Arts and Crafts designers, particularlyCharles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928), M. H. Baillie Scott(1865–1945), Charles Annesley Voysey (1857–1941), and Charles RobertAshbee (1863–1942). The artists’ houses that Olbrich built at Darm-stadt [13, 14] are free variations on the theme of the English ‘free-style’house, reminiscent of Scott’s work. Hoffmann’s Palais Stoclet inBrussels (1905–11) [15, 16], a true Gesamtkunstwerk (a ‘total work ofart’—a concept originating in Richard Wagner’s aesthetic theory) withmurals by Gustav Klimt and furniture and fittings by the architect, isclose to Mackintosh’s Hill House (1902–3) and his House for an ArtLover (1900) [17].

Over the next five years, the work of both architects took anotherturn, this time in the direction of classical eclecticism. Olbrich’s lasthouse (he died of leukaemia in 1908, aged 41) is in the then newlypopular Biedermeier revival style—with a Doric colonnade and avernacular roof. Hoffmann’s brand of Biedermeier is lighter, and is


13 and 14 Joseph MariaOlbrichTwo postcards, issued on theoccasion of an exhibition atthe Darmstadt artists’ colonyin 1904, showing a group ofOlbrich’s houses in thecolony dating from between1901 and 1904—suburbaneclecticism raised to the levelof artistic frenzy.


15 Josef Hoffmann (right)Palais Stoclet, 1905–11,BrusselsThe plan of this house—Hoffmann’s chef-d’œuvre—isclearly derived from that ofMackintosh’s House for anArt Lover, but Hoffmann hasreorganized the hall so that itbisects the house at mid-point, giving it a Beaux-Artssymmetry. The cut-outquality of the wall planes andthe metal trim along theiredges make the walls seempaper thin. (This must havebeen the reason why LeCorbusier reputedly admiredthis house).

16 Josef Hoffmann (right)Palais Stoclet, 1905–11,BrusselsThis double-height hall ischaracteristic of free-style,Art Nouveau, andneoclassical houses of theperiod. The screen of thin,closely spaced columnssimultaneously divides andunites the space.

17 Charles RennieMackintosh

House for an Art Lover, 1900This design for a Germancompetition, dating from theperiod of Mackintosh'smaximum popularity inAustria and Germany, wasvery influential. The house ismore plastic than the PalaisStoclet. The austerity of theScottish vernacular (asopposed to the softness ofVoysey's or Bail lie Scott's)suggests an emergingModernist abstraction.

connected with a general trait in his work—the tendency to use acommon plastic language for architecture and the decorative arts andto minimize the tectonic effect of gravity. According to a critic of thetime, Max Eisler, Hoffmann's later buildings were 'furniture conceivedon an architectural scale'.20

18 Richard Riemerschmid

Chest, 1905This chest is typical of thesem i-mass-prod ucedfurniture designed byRiemerschmid in the firstdecade of the twentiethcentury and exhibited in hisroom ensembles. It is close tosome of Adolf Loos's designs,and has the sameunpretentious elegance,reflecting both British andJapanese influence.

Munich and BerlinThe centre of the German Jugendstil movement was Munich, where itwas launched by the magazine Jugend in 1896. The group of designersand architects originally associated with the movement includedHermann Obrist (1863-1927), August Endell (1871-1925), PeterBehrens (1868-1940), Richard Riemerschmid (1868-1957), and Bruno


Paul (1874–1968). In 1897, like the Viennese Secessionists, the Munichgroup soon abandoned Van de Velde’s curvilinear style and began togive closer attention to the Arts and Crafts movement. Under the lead-ership of Riemerschmid and Paul, the Vereinigten Werkstätten fürKunst und Handwerk, founded in 1897, developed a range of semi-mass-produced furniture which was exhibited in the 1899 salon ofLibre Esthétique in Brussels. From 1902, Riemerschmid exhibitedrooms in which the furniture was simple and robust, with Arts andCrafts and Japanese features [18]. After about 1905, the ensembles ofRiemerschmid and Bruno Paul—especially the latter—became moreclassical. The rooms they exhibited at the Munich exhibition of 1908astonished French interior designers, who admired their elegance andunity—qualities hitherto considered peculiarly French.21

The Art Nouveau movement was overtaken by economic and culturaldevelopments. Although it aspired to be a popular movement, itshand-crafted products were only affordable by a wealthy minorityand it disintegrated with the decline of a certain set of bourgeois andnationalist fantasies, and with the inexorable rise of machine produc-tion and mass society. In the work of the Vienna Secession and in thatof Riemerschmid and Paul in Germany, we witness the Art Nouveaumovement, with its stress on individuality and originality, being trans-formed into repeatable forms based on vernacular and classical models.

But the high Art Nouveau movement left a permanent, if sub-merged, legacy—the concept of an uncoded, dynamic, and instinctualart, based on empathy with nature, for which it was possible to pre-scribe certain principles but not to lay down any unchanging andnormative rules. This concept of an art without codes can be—andoften has been—challenged, but its power of survival in the modernworld can hardly be questioned.


19 Dankmar Adler and LouisSullivanThe Auditorium Building,1886–9, ChicagoBy combining Richardson’svertical hierarchy withBurnham and Root’selimination of the wall, Adlerand Sullivan were able toachieve in this building somemeasure of balance betweenclassical monumentality andthe expression of modernstructure.

In a lecture entitled ‘Modern Architecture’, delivered in Schenectadyon 9 March 1884, the New York journalist and architectural criticMontgomery Schuyler set out what he saw to be the problem facingAmerican architecture. Schuyler presented his argument in the formof thesis and antithesis. He asserted the need for a universal culture ofarchitecture such as existed in Europe but was lacking in America dueto the absence of good models. The Beaux-Arts system, he said,might provide the basis for such a culture, one that would inculcatethe qualities of ‘sobriety, measure, and discretion’, were it not for thefact that it failed to produce an architecture appropriate to modernlife. Architecture, he says, is the most reactionary of the arts:‘Whereas in literature the classical rules are used, in architecture theyare copied . . . in architecture alone does an archaeological study passfor a work of art . . . It is not the training that I am depreciating, butthe resting in the training as not a preparation but an attainment.’ Hewent on to describe a confusion between language and architecture: ‘Aword is a conventional symbol, whereas a true architectural form is adirect expression of a mechanical fact.’

Schuyler praised American architects, particularly those ofChicago, for attempting to adapt architecture to such technical prob-lems as the elevator and the steel frame, unhampered by too manyscruples about stylistic purity. Yet he felt that the problem had not beenfully solved. ‘The real structure of these towering buildings—the“Chicago construction”—is a structure of steel and baked clay, andwhen we look for the architectural expression of it, we look in vain.’Such an articulated structure, ‘being the ultimate expression of a struc-tural arrangement, cannot be foreseen, and the form . . . comes as asurprise to the author’. Schuyler thus came out in favour of a direct andexpressive modern architecture. Yet he never explicitly rejected theBeaux-Arts tradition. Does he think that ‘sobriety, measure, and dis-cretion’ should be sacrificed on the altar of verisimilitude? That Europeshould be rejected? We are not told, and, in spite of his preference forthe second alternative, one has the impression that the first has notbeen completely abandoned.

Schuyler’s writings drew attention to a conflict between the

35

2

Organicism versusClassicism: Chicago1890–1910

architect as manipulator of a visual 'language' (classicist) and as expo-nent of a changing technology (organicist). This can be broken downinto a series of further oppositions: collectivism versus individualism;identity (nation) versus difference (region); the normative versus theunique; representation versus expression; the recognizable versusthe unexpected.

These oppositions constantly reappeared in the architecturaldebates of the early twentieth century. But in America, more transpar-ently than in Europe, they tended to be connected with problems ofhigh national policy. It is in Chicago that this tendency manifesteditself most dramatically.

The Chicago SchoolAfter the fire of 1871 and the subsequent economic depression, Chicagoexperienced an extraordinary boom in commercial real estate. Thearchitects who flocked to the city to profit from this situation broughtwith them a strong professional sense of mission. They saw their taskas the creation of a new architectural culture, believing that architec-ture should express regional character and be based on moderntechniques. The situation in Chicago seemed to offer the possibility ofa new synthesis of technology and aesthetics and of the creation of anarchitecture that symbolized the energy of the Mid-west.

The term 'Chicago School' was first used in 1908 by ThomasTallmadge to refer to the group of domestic architects, active between1893 and I9I7>to which both he and Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)belonged. It was not until 1929 that it was also used for the commercialarchitects of the i88os and 18908 by the architectural critic HenryRussell Hitchcock (1903-87) in his book Modern Architecture: Rom-anticism and Reintegration. Hitchcock associated both groups ofarchitects with 'pre-modern' Symbolists such as Victor Horta. In the19408 he made a new distinction between a commercial and a domesticphase of the school. But in contemporary usage, a complete reversalhas taken place and 'Chicago School' now generally refers to the com-mercial architecture of the i88os and 18908, while the work of FrankLloyd Wright and his colleagues is referred to as the Trairie School'.This is the terminology that will be adopted here.

The importance of the Chicago School was recognized during the19208 and 19303, as the writings of Hitchcock, Fiske Kimball (AmericanArchitecture, 1928) and Lewis Mumford (The Brown Decades, 1931)testify. But it was given a quite new claim to modernity by the Swiss arthistorian Sigfried Giedion (1888—1968) in Space, Time and Architecture(1941), where he presented the Chicago School in Hegelian terms as astage in the progressive march of history.

In rejecting the Beaux-Arts eclecticism of the East Coast, the

36 ORGANICISM VERSUS CLASSICISM! CHICAGO 1890-1910

20 Daniel Burnham and JohnWellborn RootThe Rookery Building,1885–6, ChicagoIn this early example of aChicago School officebuilding the hidden skeletonframe is ‘expressed’ by thewindows extending fromcolumn to column, but theprojecting central feature is ahangover from classicalconventions.

Chicago architects were not rejecting tradition as such. But the tradi-tion they endorsed was vague, pliable, and adaptable to modernconditions. These conditions were both economic and technical. Onthe one hand, building plots were large and regular, unencumberedwith hereditary freehold patterns. On the other, the recently inventedelectrical elevator and metal skeleton made it possible to build tounprecedented heights, multiplying the financial yield of a given plot.The last restrictions in height were removed when it became possible,due to developments in fireproofing techniques, to support the exter-nal walls, as well as the floors, on the steel frame, thus reducing themass of the wall to that of a thin cladding.1

Ever since the mid-eighteenth century French rationalists such asthe Jesuit monk and theoretician Abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier hadargued for the reduction of mass in buildings and for the expression ofa skeleton structure. Armed with this theory, which they had absorbed

organicism versus classicism: chicago 1890‒1910 37

from the writings of Viollet-le-Duc, the Chicago architects startedfrom the assumption that window openings should be increased so thatthey spanned from column to column and provided maximum day-light. But they still felt the need to retain the hierarchies of the classicalfaçade characteristic of the palaces of the Italian quattrocento. Thisresulted in a compromise in which the masonry cladding took one oftwo forms: classical pilasters carrying flat architraves; and piers withround arches—the so-called Rundbogenstil which had originated inGermany in the second quarter of the nineteenth century and beenbrought to America by immigrant German architects.2 In the earliestsolutions, groups of three storeys were superimposed on each other, ascan be seen in the Rookery Building (1885–6) [20] by Daniel H.Burnham (1845–1912) and John Wellborn Root (1850–91) and inWilliam Le Baron Jenney’s Fair Store (1890). Henry HobsonRichardson (1838–86) in the Marshall Field Wholesale Store [21] withits external walls of solid masonry, overcame the stacking effect ofthese solutions by diminishing the width of the openings in successivetiers, and Dankmar Adler (1844–1900) and Louis Sullivan (1856–1924)adapted this idea to a steel-frame structure in their AuditoriumBuilding (1886–9) [19, see page 34].

While these experiments and borrowings were taking place, an alter-native, more pragmatic approach was also being explored. In theTacoma Building (1887–9) by William Holabird (1854–1923) and Martin

21 Henry Hobson RichardsonThe Marshall Field WholesaleStore, 1885–7, Chicago(demolished)Here the unpleasant‘stacking’ effect of theRookery Building is overcomeby diminishing the width ofthe openings in thesuccessive layers. But sincethis building had externalwalls of solid masonry, the‘Chicago problem’ ofexpressing the frame did notarise.

38 organicism versus classicism: chicago 1890‒1910

22 Burnham and Co.The Reliance Building,1891–4, ChicagoDesigned by Charles Atwood,this building has always beenseen as proto-Modernist in itslightness and lack ofhierarchy. Without striving forthe monumental, Atwoodachieved a different kind ofharmony through the use ofmaterials—it is faced entirelywith terracotta tiles—and thesubtle handling of thesimplest tectonic elements,such as the proportion of thewindows and the dimensionsof glazing mullions.

Roche (1853–1927), in the Monadnock Building (1884–91, a severemasonry structure, completely without ornament) by Burnham andRoot, and in the Reliance Building (1891–4) by Burnham and Co., thefloors were not grouped in a hierarchy but expressed as a uniform series,the loss of vertical thrust being compensated for by projecting stacks ofbay windows. In the Reliance Building the cladding was of terracottarather than stone and achieved an effect of extraordinary lightness [22].

It was Louis Sullivan’s achievement to have synthesized these twoantithetical types. If the palace type, as represented by the AuditoriumBuilding, can be said to have had a weakness, it was that it did notreflect the programme, since, in fact, every floor had exactly the samefunction. The type represented by the Tacoma Building suffered fromthe opposite fault: the similarity of functions was expressed, but thebuilding, being a mere succession of floors, was lacking in monumentalexpression. In the Wainwright Building in St. Louis (1890–2) [23]Sullivan subsumed the floors under a giant order rising between astrongly emphasized base and attic. At the same time he ignored thecolumn spacing of the ‘real’ structure, reducing the spacing of thepilasters to the width of a single window. In doing this, he produced aphalanx of verticals that could be read simultaneously as columns and asmullions, as structure and as ornament, one of the effects of which wasthat the intercolumnation no longer aroused expectations of classical


23 Dankmar Adler and LouisSullivanThe Wainwright Building,1890–2, St. LouisThe problem that Sullivansolved so brilliantly in theelevations of this buildingwas that of reconciling themonumental classical façadewith the ‘democratic’repetition inherent in anoffice building.

proportion. This system was independent of the exact number of floors,though it would certainly not have worked visually in a building of rad-ically different proportions from those of the Wainwright Building.3

In his essay entitled ‘The Tall Office Building Artistically Con-sidered’ (1896), Sullivan claimed that the organization of theWainwright type of building into three clearly stated layers, with theircorresponding functions, was an application of ‘organic’ principles. Inorder to judge the validity of this claim, it will be necessary briefly toconsider Sullivan’s architectural theory, as found in his two books,Kindergarten Chats and The Autobiography of an Idea. More than any ofthe other Chicago architects, Sullivan had been influenced by the NewEngland philosophical school of Transcendentalism. This philosophy,whose chief spokesman had been Ralph Waldo Emerson, was largelyderived from German Idealism, into which Sullivan had been initiatedby his anarchist friend John H. Edelman. The ‘organic’ idea can betraced back to the Romantic movement of around 1800—particularly tosuch writers as Schelling and the Schlegel brothers, who believed thatthe external form of the work of art should, as in plants and animals, bethe product of an inner force or essence, rather than being mechanicallyimposed from without, as they judged to be the case with classicism.4

Those architectural theorists who, in their different ways, wereheirs to this idea and to the concomitant notion of tectonic expres-sion—such as Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Horatio Greenough, andViollet-le-Duc—had acknowledged that, when applied to humanartefacts, the concept of a ‘natural’ aesthetic had to be extended toinclude socially derived normative values.5 Sullivan ignored this cul-tural factor and based his argument purely on the analogy betweenarchitecture and nature. But in practice he tacitly accepted customarynorms. The Wainwright façade was derived from the tradition he sovehemently condemned—the classical–Baroque aesthetic enshrinedin Beaux-Arts teaching. In ‘correcting’ the Chicago architects’ mis-taken interpretation of this tradition, he was, in fact, returning to theclassical principle they had discarded: the need for the façade to have atripartite hierarchy corresponding to the functional distribution of theinterior.

The Wainwright Building can certainly be called a ‘solution’ to theproblem of the Chicago office façade. But its very brilliance broughtwith it certain problems. The ‘impure’ solutions of the ChicagoSchool, including Sullivan’s own Auditorium Building, had the meritof presenting to the street a complex, contrapuntal texture capable ofbeing read as part of a continuous urban fabric. The WainwrightBuilding, with its vertical emphasis and strongly marked cornerpilasters, isolated itself from its context and became a self-sufficiententity, emphasizing the individuality of the business it both housedand represented. In this, it anticipated later developments in


skyscraper design. However, Sullivan showed that he was aware of thedanger to urban unity that this kind of solution implied when, in 1891,in the journal The Graphic, he sketched a hypothetical street of varie-gated skyscrapers united by a common cornice line [24].

All Sullivan’s buildings depend to a greater or lesser extent on orna-ment, and in his theoretical writings he refers to ornament as anextension of structure. In a body of delicate drawings he developed anornamental system of arabesques analogous to that of Horta, thoughdenser and less fluid and more independent of the structure. Thisornamentation is applied in large bands of terracotta, and contrastedwith flat, unornamented surfaces, suggesting the influence of Islamicarchitecture, and also relating his work to the European Art Nouveaumovement.

Sullivan was originally offered a partnership by Adler on thestrength of his skill as an ornamentalist and designer of façades.Sullivan believed that the visible expression of a building spiritualizedan otherwise inarticulate structure. Adler, on the other hand, thoughtthat the façade merely gave the finishing touches to an organizationaland structural concept. This difference of view, whether it shows Adlerto have been the better organicist or merely more practical, seems tohave given rise to a simmering conflict between the two men, and thisis indirectly revealed in a statement made by Adler after the partner-ship had broken up (due to lack of commissions): ‘The architect is notallowed to wait until, seized by an irresistible impulse from within, hegives the world the result of his studies and musings. He is of the worldas well as in it.’6

Sullivan’s catastrophic professional failure a few years after the

24 Louis Sullivan‘The High BuildingQuestion’, 1891In this drawing, Sullivanattempted anotherreconciliation, this timebetween the demands of realestate and those of urbanaesthetics. Human scale anda sense of order weremaintained by establishing adatum at about eight to tenstoreys and allowing randomdevelopment above it.


dissolution of the partnership was no doubt due to a complicatedmixture of psychological, ideological, and economic factors. But alreadyin the 18908 the climate of opinion in Chicago was changing. Architectsno longer listened to the Transcendental message they had found socompelling a short time before, nor were they so interested in Sullivan sdoctrine of the redemption of a materialistic society through inspiredindividual creativity. As was soon to be the case in Europe, individual-ism was giving way to a more nationalistic and collectivist spirit.

The World's Columbian ExpositionThe turn towards classicism inaugurated by the Chicago World sExposition of 1893 was related to a number of contemporary politicaland economic events in America. The most important of these werethe change from laissez-faire to monopoly capitalism, the inaugura-tion of the 'open-door' trade policy for a country now ready to take itsplace on the world stage, and the rise of a collectivist politics bothmirroring and challenging the emerging corporatism of industry andfinance. In The Autobiography of an Idea, Louis Sullivan was to recallthese developments: 'During this period [the 18908] there was wellunder way the formation of mergers, corporations, and trusts in theindustrial world . . . speculation became rampant, credit was leavingterra firma . . . monopoly was in the air/ According to Sullivan,Daniel Burnham was the only architect in Chicago to catch thismovement, because, 'in its tendency towards bigness, organization,delegation, and intense commercialism, he sensed the reciprocalworkings of his own mind'. These developments were responsible forsounding the death knell of the philosophy of individualism that hadinspired the Chicago School and been the basis of Sullivan's theory.Despite his own generalizing and typological propensities, Sullivanresisted the emerging tendency towards collectivism, standardization,and massification that Burnham welcomed so avidly.

Although Chicago was chosen as the site for the World's Fairbecause it was seen to represent the dynamism of the Mid-west, thefair's promoters were more interested in the creation of a nationalmythology than a regional one. They were looking for a ready-formedarchitectural language that could allegorically represent the UnitedStates as a unified, culturally mature, imperial power. According toHenry Adams, 'Chicago was the first expression of America thoughtof as a unity: one must start from there.'7

Planning for the World's Fair started in 1890, under the joint direc-tion of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) (landscape) and DanielBurnham (buildings). The site chosen was that of Olmsted's unbuiltproject for the South Park System. It consisted of two parks—JacksonPark on the lake shore and Washington Park to the west—linked by a

ORGANICISM VERSUS CLASSICISM: CHICAGO 1890-1910 43

25 Daniel Burnham andFrederick Law Olmsted

World's ColumbianExposition, 1893, Chicago,plan showing Jackson Parkand Midway PlaisanceNote the contrast betweenthe classical regularity of theCourt of Honor to the southand the picturesqueirregularity of the lakedevelopment to the north.

long narrow strip called Midway Plaisance [25]. The core of the fairwas Jackson Park, where all the American pavilions were sited.Midway Pleasance contained the foreign pavilions and amusements,while Washington Park was laid out as a landscape.

Jackson Park was conceived on Beaux-Arts principles. The Beaux-Arts system had already made inroads on the East coast by themid-i88os. By ensuring that at least half the architects selected to designthe pavilions came from the East the promoters signalled their supportfor classicism as the style of the fair's architecture.8 This choice reversedthe Chicago Schools practice in two ways: it proposed first that groupsof buildings should be subjected to total visual control, and second thatarchitecture was a ready-made language rather than the product of indi-vidual invention in a world ruled by contingency and change.

Daniel Burnham had no difficulty in adjusting to these ideas.

44 ORGANICISM VERSUS CLASSICISM: CHICAGO 1890-1910

26 Daniel Burnham andFrederick Law OlmstedThe Court of Honor(demolished)Apart from the style of thefaçades, what was new forChicago about the Court ofHonor was its embodiment ofthe Baroque concept of avisually unified group ofbuildings. In his plan forChicago, Burnham was tocombine this idea with theadditive city grid.

Unlike Sullivan, he was able to see ‘functionalism’ as valid for a com-mercial architecture ruled by cost, and classicism as valid for anarchitecture representing national power and cosmopolitan culture.This theory of ‘character’ was shared by the brilliant young Harvard-trained architect Charles B. Atwood (1849–95), who had been hired totake the place of John Root, after Root’s sudden death. Atwood wascapable of designing the spare ‘Gothic’ Reliance and Fisher buildings,with their light terracotta facing, at the same time as the florid Baroquetriumphal arch for the fair.

The plan of the Jackson Park site was a collaborative exercise inlandscape and urban design. The visitor, arriving by boat or train, wasimmediately presented with the scenic splendour of the ‘Court ofHonor’—a huge monumental basin surrounded by the most importantpavilions [26]. A second group of pavilions, with its axis at right anglesto that of the Court of Honor, was more informally disposed round apicturesque lake. The pavilions themselves were huge two-storey shedsfaced with classical–Baroque façades, built in lathe and plaster andpainted white (hence the name ‘White City’ often given to the fair).The contrast between a strictly functional ‘factory’ space and a repre-sentative façade followed the international tradition of railway station


design, and was to be revived in the 1960s by Louis Kahn at the SalkInstitute in La Jolla within a Modernist idiom (see pages 248‒54). Untilthe Paris Exposition of 1889, international exhibitions in Europe hadfavoured the display of new technologies in their buildings, but theParis Exposition of 1900 marked a change to something more decora-tive and popular. The Chicago World’s Fair, though it lacked the ArtNouveau aspects of the Paris Exposition and maintained an unremit-ting pompier style, anticipated this approach, differing only in itsdisplay of uninhibited kitsch (according to the original plan, authenticgondoliers were to be hired to navigate the basin).

The City Beautiful movementThe World’s Fair initiated a wave of classical architecture in America.As the historian Fiske Kimball was to write in 1928: ‘The issue whetherfunction should determine form or whether an ideal form might beimposed from without, had been decided for a generation by a sweep-ing victory for the formal idea.’9 One of the consequences of the fairwas that, after the turn of the century, tall commercial buildings inAmerica began to show increased Beaux-Arts influence. This can beseen in the evolution of Burnham’s work. In his Conway Building inChicago (1912) [27], and in many other examples, he followedSullivan’s clear tripartite division, but ornamented it with a classicalsyntax, often treating the attic as a classical colonnade, reducing thesize of the windows in the middle section of the façade and playingdown the expression of structure.

The World’s Fair had a great effect on the ‘City Beautiful’ move-ment. The movement was triggered by the Senate Park Commissionplan for Washington (the ‘Macmillan Plan’), which was exhibited in1902. Both Burnham and Charles McKim (1847–1909) were on thecommission, and they were responsible for the design, which envis-aged the completion and extension of Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s plan ofthe 1790s. After this Burnham was asked to prepare many city plans,only a few of which—the plan for the centre of Cleveland, forexample—were executed. The most spectacular of these was his planfor Chicago, prepared in collaboration with E. H. Bennett (1874–1945)[28].10 The plan was financed and managed by a group of private citi-zens, and was the subject of an elaborate public relations campaign. Itsmost characteristic feature was a network of wide, diagonal avenuessuperimposed on the existing road grid in the manner of Washingtonand of Haussmann’s Paris. At the centre of this network, there was tobe a new city hall of gigantic proportions. Though never executed, theplan was to some extent used as a guide for the future development ofthe city. One enthusiastic critic, Charles Eliot, called it a representa-tion of ‘democratic, enlightened collectivism coming in to repair the

27 Burnham and Co.The Conway Building, 1912,ChicagoThis was one of the manyoffices built in Americancities after about 1910 thatconformed to the newclassical fashion of the CityBeautiful movement.


28 Daniel Burnham andEdward Bennett

City plan for Chicago, 1909This beautiful drawing byJules Guerm gives a clearidea of the unprecedentedscale of the architects'conception. The existence oftechnical innovations such asthe underpass at the streetcrossing should also benoted.

damage caused by democratic individualism'.11 Others criticized theplan because it neglected the problem of mass housing, leaving most ofthe city in the hands of the speculators.

But in spite of this apparent conflict between two incompatibleconcepts of city planning, one aesthetic and symbolic and the othersocial and practical, many social reformers, including the sociologistCharles Zueblin, supported the City Beautiful movement, claimingthat the World's Fair had instituted 'scientific planning', stimulatedefficient municipal government, and curbed the power of the bosses. Itis clear that 'enlightened collectivism', with its rejection of laissez-faireand its stress on normative standards, was able to carry both conserva-tive and progressive connotations. In Europe, where there was asimultaneous burst of planning activity, a reconciliation between theaesthetic and the social was consciously attempted. At the LondonTown Planning conference of 1910, the German planner JosephStiibben claimed that planners in his own country had been able tocombine the 'rational' French with the 'medieval' British traditions.Whether justified or not, this claim was only plausible within thecontext of the traditional European city. In America, the conceptualand physical split between living and work, the suburb and the city,made such a reconciliation impossible.

Social reform and the homeThe reaction of intellectuals against the excesses of uncontrolled capi-talism in i88os America is represented by two Utopian texts: HenryGeorge's Progress and Poverty (1880), which proposed the confiscationof all yield from increased land value, and Edward Bellamy's novelLooking Backward (1888), which described a future society based on aperfected industrial system, in which there was no longer any spacebetween freedom and total political control (see pages 220-2: 'Systemstheory'). A third text—Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class(1899)—is of particular interest, not only because Veblen taught at theUniversity of Chicago in the 18905, but also because his book advancedthe theory that there was a conflict in capitalism between the produc-tion of money and the production of goods.12

Chicago was the centre of a vigorous social reform movementwhich reflected this anti-laissez-faire mood. Whereas the Transcen-dentalists had rejected the city as a corrupting influence, the Chicagoreformists saw it as an essential instrument of industrialization, butone that needed to be domesticated. The Department of SocialSciences and Anthropology, which opened in 1892 in the University ofChicago under the leadership of Albion Small, became an importantcentre of urban sociology, its wide influence continuing into the 19205.

ORGANICISM VERSUS CLASSICISM! CHICAGO 1890-1910 49

The department and the institutions connected with it, such as theDepartment of Household Science at the University of Illinois,focused their attention on the nuclear family and the individual homein the belief that the reform of the domestic environment was the nec-essary first step in the reform of society as a whole. Thus, the designand equipment of the home became one of the key elements in aradical and wide-ranging social and political agenda.13

The problem of the home was addressed at two levels. Hull House,founded by Jane Addams in 1897, and the numerous settlement housesthat it helped to set up, worked at the grass-roots level, providingdomestic education to immigrant workers living in slum conditions.One of the essential ingredients of this education was training in thecrafts, which was organized by the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society,also based at Hull House. Classes and exhibitions in cabinet-making,bookmaking, weaving, and pottery were set up. Some small workshopswere founded, but much of the furniture was made by commercialmanufacturers, sometimes, but not always, under the supervision ofoutside designers. The work was promoted by mass-circulation maga-zines like the Ladies'Home Journal'and The House Beautiful'and sold bymail order. Low income groups were targeted, and the furniture wasmass produced. In design, it was somewhat heavier and simpler thancontemporary Arts and Crafts furniture in England and Germany,tending towards the geometrical forms in the work of Hoffmann andMackintosh, but without their hand-crafted refinement.

At a more theoretical level, the problem of the modern home wasanalysed in the department of Social Sciences and the closely affiliatedHome Economics group. This nationwide movement had its epicentrein Chicago and one of its leading figures, Marion Talbot, taught at theDepartment of Social Sciences. The movement was strongly feministand sought to revolutionize the position of women, both in the homeand in society. According to the Home Economics group there was animperative need to rethink the house in the wake of rapid urbanizationand inventions such as the telephone, electric light, and new means oftransport. The home should be organized according to FrederickWinslow Taylors principle of scientific management. The moreradical members of the group, like the Marxist Charlotte PerkinsGillman, argued against the nuclear house and advocated the social-ization of eating, cleaning, and entertainment in serviced apartmentbuildings, but generally the group accepted the nuclear house.

In matters of design the Home Economics group followed WilliamMorris in his belief that the house should contain nothing but usefuland beautiful objects. But they also believed in mass production andthe use of new, smooth materials, invoking the railroad-car buffet andthe laboratory as models for the design of kitchens, and stressing the

50 ORGANICISM VERSUS CLASSICISM: CHICAGO 1890-1910

importance of sunlight, ventilation, and cleanliness. They coined theword 'Euthenics' to describe the science of the controlled environ-ment, a word evidently intended to rhyme with Eugenics. They calledfor standardization at all levels of design, attaching great importance atthe urban level to the design of groups of identical houses—order andrepetition being thought to make a harmonious and egalitarian com-munity.14 In this, their views were not unlike those of the CityBeautiful movement, with its preference for classical anonymity in theplanning of unified groups.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie SchoolThe Prairie School was a closely knit group of young Chicago archi-tects continuing to design houses in the organicist tradition under thespiritual leadership of Louis Sullivan, and active between 1896 and1917. The group included, among others, Robert C. Spencer, DwightH. Perkins, and Myron Hunt. The group was closely associated withHull House and the Arts and Crafts Society. Some of the originalgroup later reverted to eclecticism—notably Howard Van Doren Shaw(1869-1926), whose work resembles that of the English architectEdwin Lutyens in its simultaneous allegiance to the Arts and Craftsand to eclectic classicism.15

The most brilliant member of the group was Frank Lloyd Wright.He, more than any of the others, was able to forge a personal style thatembodied the group's common ambitions. Wright's natural talent wasstimulated and guided by the theory of 'pure design', which was thesubject of lectures and discussions at the Chicago branch of the Archi-tectural League of America around 1901.16 This concept was promotedby the architect and teacher Emil Lorch, who had transferred toarchitecture the geometrical principles of painting and design taughtby Arthur Wesley Dow at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.According to this theory, there were fundamental ahistorical principlesof composition, and these principles should be taught in schools ofarchitecture.17 This idea was a commonplace of late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century art and architectural theory inEurope in academic as well as avant-garde circles.18 Although it wasantagonistic to eclecticism, its promotion of systematic design theoryin architectural schools was probably due to the example of theBeaux-Arts.

Wright's houses show the influence of this theory [29, 30]. Theirplans are geometrically more rigorous than anything being built inEurope at the time. They also share with the work of Mackintosh,Olbrich, and Hoffmann (see pages 28-9) a geometrical stylization ofornament, but go further in the abstraction of the elements of wall and

ORGANICISM VERSUS CLASSICISM: CHICAGO 1890-1910 51

29 Frank Lloyd WrightWard Willits House, 1902,Highland Park, IllinoisThis external view showsWright’s transformation ofroofs into abstract hoveringplanes.

roof, which lose their conventional associations and are reduced to asystem of intersecting and overlapping planes. The plans of Wright’shouses consist of an additive system of simple volumes interlockingwith or relating freely to each other in a way that resembles the Artsand Crafts tradition. However, not only is there greater continuitybetween one space and another than can be found in the Englishmovement, in which the traditional room remains dominant, but theplans exhibit a geometrical order which stems from Beaux-Arts ratherthan English sources. At the macro scale, the plans tend to developalong the two orthogonal axes, crossing at a central hearth and reach-ing out into the surrounding landscape, while at the micro scale thereare carefully controlled local symmetries and sub-axes, showing theinfluence of the Beaux-Arts-trained H. H. Richardson. Internally, asin the houses of Voysey, Mackintosh, and Hoffmann, the rooms areunified by low cornices at door-head level. But in Wright’s work thesehave the effect of compressing the vertical dimension, producing aprimitive, cave-like sensation [31].

The system of ornament consists of dark-stained wood trim, recall-ing that of Mackintosh and Hoffmann. Electric light and ventilationfittings are absorbed into the general ornamental unity. ‘Art’ still dom-inates, but it is now produced by the machine, not by the craftsman,and is totally controlled by the architect working at his drawing-board[32]: ‘The machine . . . has placed in artist hands the means ofidealizing the true nature of wood . . . without waste, within reach ofall.’19

In fact, Wright came early on to the conclusion that mass produc-tion was necessary if good design was to be democratically enjoyed. In1901 he gave a lecture at Hull House entitled ‘The Art and Craft of theMachine’ in which he argued that the alienation of the craftsman dueto machine production would be outweighed by the artist’s ability tocreate beauty with the machine—an anti-Ruskinian argument thatwould soon be taken up within the Deutscher Werkbund in its supportof machine work as opposed to handwork. This philosophy was com-pletely consistent with Wright’s search for universal laws of design,with its privileging of the artist over the craftsman.

Yet Wright’s position on industrialization was ultimately ambiva-lent. It was poised between an endorsement of ‘that greatest ofmachines’, as he called the industrial city, and a nostalgic image of theAmerican suburb as a new Arcadia uncontaminated by industrialism.This conflict was reflected in his daily life, divided between his radicalfriends at Hull House and the suburb of Oak Park where he practisedand lived with his young family, and where his neighbours were thepractical-minded businessmen who commissioned his houses.20 Thisenormously creative and influential phase of Wright’s life came to anabrupt end when in 1909, at the age of 42, he abandoned Oak Park,


30 Frank Lloyd WrightWard Willits House, 1902,Highland Park, Illinois,ground-floor planThe Willits House was one ofthe earliest examples ofWright’s revolutionary systemof composition. This wasinfluenced by the theory of‘pure design’ which wasbeing discussed at theChicago branch of theArchitectural League in1901, by means of whichWright hoped to create a pureMid-western architecture.

32 Frank Lloyd WrightThe Robie House, 1908–10,South Woodlawn, ChicagoThe rhyming of the tectonicornament and fixed furniturein the Robie House, shownhere in the dining room, isalmost obsessional. Even thefree-standing furniture hasbecome monumentalized.The aesthetic control is totaland somewhat oppressive—aGesamtkunstwerk of the T-square.

his family and his architectural practice, having concluded that theunity between art and life that he craved was not possible in thesuburb.

Montgomery Schuyler, in his anticipation of an American architec-ture, had been concerned with public and urban buildings, whetherthey took the form of cultural representation or organic expression.Frank Lloyd Wright, working within the tradition of the Arts andCrafts movement, turned away from such problems to concentratemostly on the private house, the nuclear family, and the small commu-nity. Reviving dreams of the frontier, he sought, more passionatelythan any of his colleagues, to create a regional Mid-western domesticarchitecture of rural innocence.

It was the formal skill with which Wright deployed an abstract andastylar architecture that impressed the European avant-garde archi-tects when his work was published in Germany by Wasmuth in 1910, atthe moment when they were searching for a formula that would freethem from traditional forms. But with this abstraction came an archi-tecture that was primitivist, regionalist, and anti-metropolitan.Through the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright, international Mod-ernism had at least one of its roots in the regional and democraticconcerns of the American Mid-west and in the organicist theories ofits architects.


31 Frank Lloyd WrightCoonley House, 1908,Riverside, IllinoisIn his interiors, Wright usesall the main elements of theArts and Crafts tradition butexaggerates the horizontalityof the space and gives thefireplace a new symbolicstatus. The effect in theCoonley House is one ofspatial generosityparadoxically combined withcave-like protection.

33 Peter BehrensAEG Turbine Factory,1908–9, BerlinThe literal use of steelstructure in the interior is acomplete contrast with themonumental expression ofthe exterior.

The international reform movement in architecture and the industrialarts was accompanied in Germany by special historical circumstances.In the German-speaking world, a self-image had begun to take shapein the second half of the eighteenth century in opposition to Frenchcultural hegemony and Enlightenment universalism. The conscious-ness of a specifically German Kultur, as distinct from French-derivedZivilisation, was reinforced during the Napoleonic wars. The effect ofthis was to intensify the search for cultural identity, but at the sametime to act as a powerful incentive to modernization. Romanticism andRationalism coexisted, sometimes in mutual reinforcement, some-times in opposition. Modernization increased its pace after theunification of Germany’s many states into the German Empire in 1871.But by the 1890s there was already widespread disappointment with itscultural results, and the beginning of an anti-liberal, anti-positivistbacklash. This tendency mirrored similar tendencies in Europe as awhole, but in Germany it brought to the surface a latent ideology of theVolk.1 According to the writer Julius Langbehn (1851–1907) moderncivilization, especially that of America, was without roots. In his best-selling book Rembrandt als Erzieher (Rembrandt as Educator, Leipzig,1903), he argued for a return to the rooted culture of the German Volk,the spirit of which he saw as embodied in the paintings of Rembrandt.The social philosopher Ferdinand Tönnies (1856–1936), in his bookGemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (roughly: Community and Society,Leipzig, 1887), drew attention to the ancient German forms of associa-tion, which were being replaced by modern industrial forms ofassociation or ‘companies’.

In fact, the movement for artistic reform in Germany was, from thestart, deeply involved in the question of national identity. Those par-ticipating in the movement were caught between a desire to return totheir pre-industrial roots and an equally strong impulse towardsmodernization as the necessary condition of competing commerciallywith the Western nations.

57

3

Culture andIndustry: Germany1907–14

The Deutscher WerkbundAt the beginning of the twentieth century in Germany, the chief agentof artistic and cultural reform was the Deutscher Werkbund, whichgrew out of the German Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbe) movement.Many local reform groups had emerged since the onset of the Arts andCrafts movement in the late 1890s, including Alfred Lichtwark’s ArtEducation Movement (1897), Ferdinand Avenarius’s Dürerbund(1902), and the Bund Heimatschutz (1904).2 In addition, a number ofworkshops modelled on the English guilds had been founded, themost successful of which were the Munich-based Vereinigten Werk-stätte (see page 62) and the Dresdner Werkstätte, both of which, unliketheir English counterparts, were making semi-mass-produced furni-ture from their inception.

The Deutscher Werkbund was founded in Munich in 1907 to con-solidate these separate initiatives and accelerate the integration of artand industry at a national level. The chief moving spirits behind itsfoundation were the Christian Socialist politician Friedrich Naumann(1860–1919), the director of the Dresdner Werkstätte Karl Schmidt,and the architect–bureaucrat Hermann Muthesius (1861–1927).Initially 12 architects and 12 companies were invited to join. The archi-tects included Peter Behrens (1868–1940), Theodor Fischer(1862–1938), Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Paul Schultze-Naumburg (1869–1949), and Fritz Schumacher (1869–1947). Most ofthe companies were manufacturers of domestic furniture and equip-ment, but two printers, a type founder, and a publisher were alsoincluded. All these firms withdrew from the existing conservative andcommercially motivated Alliance for German Applied Arts to join thenew organization and in so doing committed themselves to workingwith named architects.

The Werkbund’s orientation towards high-quality goods for massconsumption is clear from a speech given by Naumann in 1906: ‘Manypeople do not have the money to hire artists, and, consequently, manyproducts are going to be mass produced; for this great problem, theonly solution is to infuse mass-production with meaning and spirit byartistic means.’3 Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Werkbund inMunich, Fritz Schumacher, professor of architecture at the DresdenTechnische Hochschule and director of a highly successful Arts andCrafts exhibition in Dresden in 1906, stressed the need to bridge thegap between artists and producers that had developed with machineproduction:

The time has come when Germany should cease to look on the artist as a manwho . . . follows his inclination, and rather see him as one of the importantpowers for the ennobling of work and therefore for the ennobling of the entire

58 culture and industry: germany 1907‒14

life of the nation, and to make it victorious in the competition among peoples. . . there is in aesthetic power a higher economic value.4

Despite this well-defined programme, the membership of theWerkbund represented a wide range of opinion. The organization’smain areas of activity were: general propaganda (publishing, exhibi-tions, congresses); the education of the consumer (lectures, windowdressing competitions, and so on); and the reform of product design(for example, persuading industrialists to employ artists).5

Form or GestaltThe need to assimilate the machine to the artistic principles of the Artsand Crafts movement entailed a reconceptualization of the role of theartist. Morris’s conception of the artist–craftsman as someone physi-cally involved with materials and functions gave way to that of the artistas ‘form giver’. The new concept was put forward at the Werkbundcongress of 1908 by the sculptor Rudolf Bosselt, and reaffirmed byMuthesius in 1911.6 Both asserted that, in the design of machine prod-ucts, ‘form’ or Gestalt7 should take precedence over function, material,and technique, which had been stressed by the Arts and Crafts andJugendstil movements. Curiously enough, this idea did not originate inthe context of the debate on art and industry, but in the field of aesthet-ics. It was the product of a century-long history of aesthetic thought,beginning with Immanuel Kant’s isolation of art as an autonomoussystem, and culminating in the theory of ‘pure visibility’ (Sichtbarkeit)propounded by the philosopher of aesthetics Conrad Fiedler.8

Muthesius and the notion of typeClosely connected with the idea of Gestalt was Muthesius’s concept ofTypisierung (typification)—a word he coined to denote the establish-ment of standard or typical forms.9 His argument was the apparentlytrivial one that mass production entails standardization. But, relyingon the ambiguity inherent in the word ‘type’, Muthesius conflated apragmatic notion of standardization with the idea of the ‘type’ as aPlatonic universal. Only through typification, he said, ‘can architecturerecover that universal significance which was characteristic of it intimes of harmonious culture’.10

Muthesius’s concept of a unified culture was an attack on laissez-faire capitalism, though not on monopoly capitalism. For him, and formany within the Werkbund who shared his views, the degeneration ofmodern taste was due not, as Ruskin had thought, to the machine assuch, but to the cultural disorder caused by the operation of themarket, and the destabilizing effect of fashion. If the middle-man whomanipulated the market could be eliminated it would be possible to

culture and industry: germany 1907‒14 59

recover the direct relationship between producer and consumer andbetween technique and culture, that had existed in pre-capitalist soci-eties. Muthesius foresaw the emergence of large factories for theproduction of consumer goods similar to the trusts and cartels thatwere becoming increasingly characteristic of German heavy industry.These firms, producing goods of standardized artistic quality, would beable to dominate the market and act as the sole arbiters of taste, operat-ing as the modern equivalent of the medieval guilds.11

When Muthesius presented his notion of Typisierung at theWerkbund congress of 1914 at Cologne it was strongly criticized by agroup of artists, architects, and critics which included Van de Velde,Bruno Taut (1880–1938) and Walter Gropius (1883–1969). Van deVelde, though a passionate disciple of William Morris, did not ques-tion the need for machine production, nor did he disagree with thenotion of a unified culture. But he disagreed with the bureaucraticmethods proposed by Muthesius. For him and his supporters, culturecould not be created by the imposition of typical forms. High artisticquality depended on the freedom of the individual artist. Fixed typesdid indeed emerge in all artistic cultures, but they were the end-prod-ucts of an evolutionary process of artistic development, not its initialcondition. Muthesius had simply reversed the order of cause andeffect. This celebrated conflict has usually been interpreted as a battlebetween the avant-garde supporters of a new machine culture and theregressive supporters of an outdated handicraft tradition. The truth ismore complex, and to understand the situation it is necessary to disen-tangle the confusion that reigned at the time as to the status of the‘artist’ in the modern industrial arts.

The debate between Van de Velde and Muthesius cannot be seenmerely as the conflict between handicraft and the machine (though itwas this as well) since the ambiguous figure of the ‘artist’ appears aschief protagonist on both sides. Both groups believed that, under con-ditions of machine production, division of labour had separatedtechnique from art and that it was necessary to reintroduce the artistinto the production process. They differed, however, in their interpreta-tion of role that the artist would now play. Insofar as he saw the artist asa specialist in ‘pure form’, divorced from the mechanics of craft (now thedomain of the machine), Muthesius’s position seems ‘progressive’,seeking to adapt the artist to the abstract processes of capitalism. ButVan de Velde’s concept of the evolutionary process of style formationwas more compatible with the conditions of market capitalism, and inthat sense more ‘modern’ than Muthesius’s bureaucratic model. To whatextent Van de Velde, with his strongly held socialist views, grasped theconnection between the artistic freedom he was proposing and the mar-ketplace is an intriguing question, but the connection is clearly reflectedin the writings of his patron and supporter, Karl Ernst Osthaus.12


Originally Muthesius had also held to this concept of the individu-alistic artist. For example, he had been in favour of the law of 1907which gave the applied artist the copyright protection that was alreadyenjoyed by the fine artist.13 But some time between 1907 and 1910 heseems to have moved towards the idea that the artist should not seekoriginality, but should be the conduit for universal aesthetic laws, a viewthat was in line with the prevalent neo-Kantian aesthetic philosophy.Muthesius now argued that there was a kinship between the law-likestability and anonymity of the classical and vernacular traditions on theone hand, and the repetitiveness, regularity, and simplicity of machinedforms on the other. Machined forms were the modern, historicalinstance of a universal law. Though this idea did not exclude the artist,it did demand that the personality of the artist should be controlled.14

Muthesius sought to implement these ideas by creating an organi-zational framework within which future artists would have to work,thus reverting to archaic processes similar to those that Karl FriedrichSchinkel had adopted when commissioned to ‘normalize’ the ruralarchitecture of Prussia a century earlier. In Muthesius, therefore, wesee the fusion of two ideologies, the one bureaucratic and nationalistic,the other classicizing and normative. Though it is difficult to say atwhat level these ideologies are, in fact, connected, they appear to havebeen inseparable within the context of architectural discourse in theyears leading up to the First World War in Germany. It was a combina-tion that took a particularly explosive form in Germany, but it was alsopresent, in differing regional forms, in America, England, and France.

Style and ideologyAnother aspect of the battle between Muthesius’s concept of type andthe spontaneity demanded by Van de Velde must now be addressed.The standardization required by machine production was seen to rec-oncile modernity with classical humanism. But the demand for thefreedom of the artist was also associated with a Nietzschian, Dionysian,anarchistic urge not to try to tame the disorder of modernity but toplunge into its terrifying and nihilistic stream. These different attitudescorrespond to two groups of architects. Among the classicizing group,two will be discussed here—Heinrich Tessenow (1876–1950) and PeterBehrens—and their work will be compared to that of the young WalterGropius, who was poised between the two groups. Discussion of theopposite camp, the Expressionists, belongs to a later chapter.

Heinrich TessenowOne of Heinrich Tessenow’s major concerns was mass housing and theproblem of repetition. He studied this issue in the context of the


English Garden City movement, which had had a great influence onthe German Arts and Crafts. Most of the leading architects of the daywere similarly involved. Behrens, Riemerschmid, Muthesius, as well asTessenow, designed groups of houses for Karl Schmidt’s workers’settlement of Hellerau, just outside Dresden. These architects wereinfluenced by the medieval models advocated by Camillo Sitte (seepage 28) and continued by the Garden City movement. But this influ-ence was modified by that of Paul Mebes, whose popular book Um1800, which appeared in 1905, advocated a return to the classicalBiedermeier tradition of the early nineteenth century as the lastinstance of a unified German culture. As we have seen, a similar shifttowards the classical occurred in the furniture designed by the Vere-inigten Werkstätte (see page 58). This tendency was not restricted toGermany. For example, in the last years of the Arts and Crafts move-ment in England, there was a similar return to what might be called the‘classical vernacular’ of the eighteenth century (commonly known as‘Georgian’), which was seen to represent ‘form’ and ‘proportion’ asopposed to ‘detail’ (though, characteristically, this development wasnot theorized to the extent that it was in Germany).15

Tessenow’s housing projects were supported by a social theory thatromanticized the petite bourgeoisie as the foundation of traditionalGerman social order, and his fastidious drawings conjure up a lostworld of neat Biedermeier innocence. He visualized small towns ofbetween 20,000 and 60,000 inhabitants, with a handicraft industryaccommodating a maximum of ten artisans per workshop. Tessenow’srejection of industrial civilization was hardly less extreme than Ruskin’s,though his preference for classical forms is very un-Ruskinian [34].

Besides housing, Tessenow built the main ‘cultural’ building inHellerau—Jaques Dalcroze’s school of eurhythmics (1911–12) [35]. The

34 Heinrich TessenowHouses designed for theGarden City of Hohensalza,1911–14This courtyard schemesuggests an idylliccommunity. The drawingtechnique is reminiscent ofSchinkel’s drawings for theGarden House atCharlottenhof in Potsdamand, as with Schinkel’sdesign, a pergola gives aslightly Mediterraneanflavour to the project.


35 Heinrich TessenowDalcroze Institute, 1911–12,HellerauFront view, showing therelation between the temple-like auditorium and the sidewings. The rather steeppediment illustratesTessenow’s attempt to fuseGerman and Latinprototypes.


36 Heinrich TessenowDalcroze Institute, 1911–12,HellerauThis photograph of a danceperformance taking place onthe stage of the DalcrozeInstitute, shows an abstract,rather neo-Grec set byAdolphe Appia. Note theclose relationship betweenthe architecture of the setand the formal patternscreated by the dancers.

main space in this building was a rectangular auditorium, providing aneutral background for the severely neoclassical stage-sets of the Swissdesigner Adolphe Appia [36]. Externally, the building itself was neo-classical, though in the final design the residential wings were given amore vernacular, Heimat-like appearance, with steep roofs which sitrather incongruously with the Greek portico of the central building.Another aspect of Tessenow’s work becomes apparent in the Hellerauschool: a quality of abstraction and formal purity that anticipates thework of Mies van der Rohe and corresponds to the Greek spirit ofAppia’s stage-sets and Dalcroze’s choreography.

Peter BehrensBehrens began as a painter associated with the Munich Secession of1893. He was a founding member of the Darmstadt artists’ colonywhere in 1901 he built the only house not designed by Olbrich (seepage 30). His approach to art and architecture was deeply tinged withthe Symbolism that characterized the German secessionist move-ments. His mystical leanings had already shown themselves when hecollaborated in organizing a highly ritualistic inaugural ceremony atthe Darmstadt colony with Georg Fuchs, one of the leaders of theatri-cal reform in Germany. One of the crucial turning points in Behrens’sarchitectural career came during his directorship of the School of Artsand Crafts at Düsseldorf between 1903 and 1907, where he was influ-enced by the Dutch architect J. L. M. Lauweriks and becameinterested in the mystical–symbolic implications of geometry.16 Thismarked his rejection of Jugendstil in favour of classicism in a move thatparalleled the emergence of the idea of Gestalt within the Werkbund.

37 Peter BehrensAEG Pavilion, ShipbuildingExposition, 1908, BerlinThis octagonal pavilion was afusion of neo-Grecian andTuscan proto-Renaissancestylistic elements. Itscentralized, baptistery-likeplan is often found in Germanexhibitions before the FirstWorld War.


38 Peter Behrens

Design for the cover of anAEG prospectus, 1910The style is both Jugendstiland classical, exploiting withsaturated flat colours therelatively new technique ofoffset lithography. Behrenshad been a painter before hebecame an architect.

In 1907, outlining the programme of the Dusseldorf School, he wrote:'The . . . school seeks mediation by going back to the fundamentalprinciples of form, to take root in the artistically spontaneous, in theinner laws of perception, rather than in the mechanical aspects ofwork/17

From 1905 onwards, Behrens designed a number of buildings in ageometrical Tuscan Romanesque style. These included a crematoriumat Hagen (1905) and the Allgemeine Elektricitats-Gesellschaft (AEG)Pavilion for the Shipbuilding Exposition in Berlin (1908) [37], as wellas a series of neoclassical villas such as the Cuno House at Hagen-Eppenhausen (1908-9) and the Wiegand House in Berlin (1911). Butthe climax of this classical phase of Behrens's career was his design forthe huge AEG Turbine Factory in Berlin (1908-9). Behrens wasappointed design consultant for the electrical giant in 1907 and wasresponsible for all AEGs design work, including logos, consumerproducts, and buildings—a perfect example of Muthesius's ideal of col-laboration between the artist and big industry [38]. The TurbineFactory [39], designed in collaboration with the engineer Karl Bern-hard, was the first and the most symbolically loaded of a series ofindustrial buildings that Behrens was to build on AEG's huge Berlin-Moabit site between 1908 and 1912. Behrens's buildings for AEGreflect his faith in the ennobling effect of art on technology. Heclaimed that the architecture of the machine age should be based onclassicism—that in an age of speed the only appropriate buildingswould be those with forms as distinct as possible, with quiet, flushsurfaces.18 His critics pointed out that his own buildings reflected

CULTURE AND INDUSTRY! GERMANY 1907-14 65

immobility and mass rather than speed,19 and indeed it seems thatBehrens was suggesting a form of resistance to, rather than an accep-tance of, the modern metropolis—that metropolis which for thephilosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel (1858–1918) was character-ized by ‘the intensification of nervous stimuli resulting from a rapid anduninterrupted succession of impressions’.20

Certainly, another Symbolism than that of the fleeting andephemeral is at work in the Turbine Factory. Here Behrens set out tospiritualize the power of modern industry in terms of an eternal classi-cism. The basic metaphor at work is the factory as Greek temple. Thecorner site makes possible a diagonal approach allowing the observer toview front and side elevations simultaneously, as in the case of theParthenon. The metaphor is elaborated with great plastic skill.Behrens establishes two simultaneous systems, an outer columnar one,and an inner one of surface. An ‘order’ of steel stanchions, resting ongiant hinges [40], takes the place of the temple colonnade, in a directmetonymic displacement. The continuous side glazing, made opaqueby a close pattern of glazing bars [33 (see page 56)], is inclined to thesame slope as the inner face of the stanchions, giving a rather Egyptianeffect. This is continued in the corner buttresses, their mass furtheremphasized by deep horizontal striations [41]. These buttresses createan effect of classical mass and stability but in fact they are only thinmembranes and perform no structural role whatever. Moreover, eventheir apparent structural role is undermined by the projecting centralwindow, which appears to be supporting the pediment. Because of this

39 Peter BehrensAEG Turbine Factory,1908–9, BerlinThis building is striking for itsoptical effects, including theuse of battered walls andsolid steel columnsdiminishing towards theirbase. The steel columnspresent their maximumprofile when seen in diagonalperspective.


40 Peter BehrensAEG Turbine Factory,1908–9, BerlinDetail of rocker at the foot ofeach column.

and other discrepancies between appearance and reality the twosystems that Behrens tries to synthesize—technical positivism andclassical humanism—remain stubbornly separate. Yet, paradoxically,the building has a majestic calm, and is a very effective representationof industrial power.


41 Peter BehrensAEG Turbine Factory,1908–9, BerlinThe corner buttresses withtheir rounded edges andhorizontal striations create afeeling of mass, although inreality they are thinmembranes supported on aframe.

Walter Gropius and the Fagus FactoryGropius had worked for Behrens between 1910 and 1911 and hadabsorbed many of his ideas, but he was 15 years younger—a gap largeenough to explain certain ideological differences. For example he wasmore concerned than Behrens with the social implications of machineproduction, realizing that it meant the irretrievable separation of artis-tic conceptualization and the production process, and that therelationship between the craftsman and his own products would hence-forth be that of consumer not producer. In an address entitled 'Kunstund Industriebau' given at the Volkwang Museum at Hagen in 1911,Gropius tried to suggest a socially acceptable solution to this problem:

Work must be established in palaces that give the workman, now a slave toindustrial labour, not only light, air, and hygiene, but also an indication of thegreat common idea that drives everything. Only then can the individualsubmit to the impersonal without losing the joy of working together for thatcommon good previously unattainable by a single individual.

In exchange for being alienated from the end product of their work,workers, as consumers, are offered a transcendental collective experi-ence. This idea, which had been aired a few years earlier by FrankLloyd Wright (see page 53) was to be given a philosophically moresophisticated formulation by the architect and critic Adolf Behne inthe 1920s.22 But through the mists of a rather confused rhetoric oneglimpses the troubled social Utopianism that was to throw Gropiusinto the camp of the anti-technological Expressionists at the end of theFirst World War. For the moment, however, Gropius did not doubtthat the machine could be spiritualized by means of art, and advocatedan architecture of technical rationalism, even presenting to EmilRathenau, director of AEG,23 a memorandum on the rationalizationof the housing industry.24

Why, then, was Gropius the most implacable of all Muthesius'scritics at the Cologne congress? The answer must lie in the ambiguousnature of the concept of'totalization' to which both he and Muthesiussubscribed. Both believed that the artist (or the architect-as-artist) wasnow an intellectual charged with the task of inventing the forms of themachine age, considered as a cultural totality. But for Gropius it wasprecisely this totalizing, legislative, quasi-ethical role that demandedthat the artist should remain free of political interference. Only thebest and the most original ideas would be worthy of mechanicalreproduction. In this, Gropius was at one with Van de Velde. Heviolently rejected the idea of the control of artistic conceptualization bythe state bureaucracy or its proxy, big business, which was beingpromoted by Muthesius. But at the level of theory Gropius's position

68 CULTURE AND INDUSTRY: GERMANY 1907-14

was no different from that of Behrens in its postulation of two realms,one of which—nature–technology—would be transfigured by theother—spirit (Geist).

In Gropius’s architecture, however, there is something new, and wecan get some idea of it if we compare his Fagus Factory (1911–12) [42,43] at Alfeld an der Leine, built in collaboration with Adolf Meyer(1881–1929), with Behrens’s Turbine Factory. Much of the differencebetween the two buildings can be attributed to their radically differentprogrammes. Gropius and Meyer’s small, provincial shoe-lastfactory—or rather its administrative wing, which was the only part ofthe factory complex over which the architects had full control—couldhardly be said to invoke the world-historical themes of Behrens’sfactory, built in the nation’s capital for one of Germany’s most impor-tant cartels. Yet it was precisely the Fagus Factory’s modesty and lack ofsymbolic charge that enabled Gropius to follow his more down-to-earth agenda and to produce a work which would come to be seen asprophetic of the ‘objective’ (Sachlich) Modern Movement of the 1920s.

Not that the building lacks optical tricks. But it no longer makesany of Behrens’s grandiose symbolic claims. Gropius starts withBehrens’s projecting bay window and recessed, tilted masonry as hismain motifs, but transforms them. The tilt is now, it seems, a prag-matic (though probably expensive) solution, by means of which thebrick piers can appear to be recessed without the glazing unit having tobe cantilevered out at its sill. Whereas Behrens rhetoricizes his repeat-ing columns, giving them maximum corporeality to create the effect ofclassical monumentality, Gropius tries to make his necessarily massivebrick piers disappear, so that the main façade of his building looks as ifit is made entirely of glass. Whereas Behrens strengthens his cornerswith illusionistic buttresses, Gropius voids his with real transparency.Whereas Behrens impressionistically rounds his corners, Gropiussharpens his with the precision of a surgeon’s knife-cut. Finally,whereas the Turbine Factory abounds in overt classical references, theclassicism of the Fagus Factory is discreet and abstract—a matter ofgeometry.

But though the Fagus Factory can thus be read off against theTurbine Factory, it is not simply a mannerist inversion; it has its ownagenda. Its illusionism, though still owing something to Behrens, is amatter of bringing out the transcendent qualities of materials—partic-ularly glass with its mystical connotations (see the discussion of glasssymbolism on page 92)—rather than working against the nature ofmaterials as Behrens often did. In this Gropius was truer to the ‘func-tional’ tradition of Jugendstil, even though he jettisoned most (if notall) of its craftsman-like individualism. In the Fagus factory, material-ity and form are synthesized in a new way—a way that seems to showthe influence of the American factories that Gropius had illustrated


42 Walter Gropius and AdolfMeyerFagus Factory, 1911–12,Alfeld an der LeineSouth-east façade,administration wing. Thisbuilding is a kind ofpolemical reversal ofBehrens’s Turbine Factory.There the glass surfaceslopes back and is recessedbehind the solid structure. Inthe Fagus Factory thestructure slopes back and theglass projects in front of it.The negative becomespositive, empty spacebecomes palpable.


43 Walter Gropius and AdolfMeyerFagus Factory, 1911–12,Alfeld an der LeineEntrance lobby. Note vestigesof Jugendstil decoration.

while editing the Jahrbuch des Deutschen Werkbundes. In Gropius’s atti-tude to design, art and pragmatism seem to coexist, and this is reflectedin a theoretical position that sees no contradiction between Typisierungand the continuing role of the individual artist–architect. In this—anddespite his connections later with Expressionism, which will be dis-cussed in chapter 5—Gropius’s work was prophetic of the newarchitectural discourse that was to emerge in Germany around 1923.


4

44 Adolf Loos

Karntner Bar, 1907, ViennaThe sense of intimacy isenhanced by the choice ofdark, soft materials, and anatmosphere of subduedexcitement is created by theuse of mirrors.

The Urn and the

Chamberpot:Adolf Loos 1900-30Adolf Loos (1870-1933) occupies a unique place in the history ofmodern architecture. A maverick who refused to join any 'club', he wasnot only a powerful thinker able to expose the contradictions of con-temporary theory but an architect whose work, though small in output,was provocative and highly original. His influence on the succeedinggeneration of architects, particularly Le Corbusier, was enormous, andhis ideas have, through successive reinterpretations, maintained theirrelevance to the present day.

The son of a stonemason, Loos was born in Brno, Moravia (at the time partof the Austro-Hungarian empire, now in the Czech Republic) and studied atthe Imperial State Technical College in Vienna, and the Dresden College oftechnology. In 1893 he travelled to America, where his uncle had emigrated,visiting the Columbia World s Fair and eventually starting a small practice inNew York before returning to Austria in 1896. As a result of this experience,he was to retain a lifelong admiration for Anglo-American culture.

Although he belonged to the same generation as the main figures ofthe Art Nouveau and Jugendstil movements, Loos reacted stronglyagainst their attempt to replace Beaux-Arts eclecticism with what hesaw as a superficial system of ornament. He was not, of course, alone inhis rejection of Jugendstil and its ideology of the Gesamtkunstwerk. InGermany by 1902, as we have seen, designers like RichardRiemerschmid and Bruno Paul had abandoned this style, and inAustria Josef Hoffmann, the founder of the Wiener Werkstatte, haddrastically simplified the Secessionist vocabulary. But Loos s critiquewas more fundamental than theirs; it was based on a rejection of thevery concept of'art' when applied to the design of objects for everydayuse. Whereas Van de Velde and the Jugendstil movement had wantedto eliminate the distinction between the craftsman and the artist, Loossaw the split between them as irreversible. Far from believing in aunified culture in which the craftsman and the artist would bereunited, he readily accepted the distinction between the objects ofeveryday life and imaginative works of art. But for Loos that distinc-tion was not based on the division of hand-work and machine-work orof mental conception and execution—the issue that was so importantfor the ideologues of the Werkbund. What defined the useful object

73

was not its mode of manufacture but its purpose. Perfection of execu-tion should be the aim of hand-work and machine-work alike. In bothcases the maker should not express individuality but should be thetransmitter of impersonal cultural values. Loos’s enthusiasm for theEnglish Arts and Crafts movement was based not only on the qualityof its workmanship, but also on the fact that it did not strive for the wil-fully new, but respected tradition and custom.

It was as a writer of polemical articles that Loos first becameknown. His aphoristic, witty, and sarcastic pieces, which gained him asmany enemies as friends, resembled the writings of his close friend, thepoet Karl Kraus (1874–1936), editor and sole writer of the satiricaljournal Die Fackel (The Torch), published from 1899 to 1936. In thisjournal Kraus pursued a relentless campaign against the Austrian cul-tural and political establishment and its journalists, whose abuse oflanguage he saw as betraying unfathomable depths of hypocrisy andmoral degradation.1 Loos himself started a journal—Das Andere (TheOther)—which, however, appeared in only two numbers in 1903, assupplements in Peter Altenberg’s journal Die Kunst. This publication,subtitled A Journal for the Introduction of Western Civilization intoAustria, paralleled Die Fackel’s cultural critique in the sphere of theuseful arts, comparing Austrian culture unfavourably with that ofEngland and America. Loos’s articles attacked not only Austrianmiddle-class culture, but also the very ‘avant-garde’ culture that aimedto supersede it.2

Loos’s writings shifted the debate on the reform of the applied artsinto a new register—one that was eventually to turn him into theunwitting father figure of the 1920s Modern Movement. In his essay‘Ornament and Crime’ (1908), he claimed that the elimination ofornament from useful objects was the result of a cultural evolutionleading to the abolition of waste and superfluity from human labour.This process was not harmful but beneficial to culture, reducing thetime spent on manual labour and releasing energy for the life of themind.

The essay was not merely an attack on the Viennese Secession andJugendstil, it was also an attack on the Werkbund, founded a yearearlier. As we have seen, Muthesius’s aim for the Werkbund was to givethe artist a form-giving role within industry, and thus to establish theGestalt of the machine age. To Loos, this was unacceptable—not, as forVan de Velde and Gropius, because it would destroy the freedom of theartist but precisely because it envisaged the artist as the primary agentin the creation of everyday objects. Loos believed that the ‘style of anepoch’ was always the result of multiple economic and cultural forces.It was not something which the producer, aided by the artist, shouldtry to impose on the consumer: ‘Germany makes, the world takes. Atleast it should. But it does not want to. It wants to create its own forms

74 the urn and the chamberpot: adolf loos 1900‒30

for its own life rather than have them imposed by some arbitrary pro-ducers’ association.’3

With his aim of involving the artist in industry, Muthesius (Loos’sargument implied) was merely substituting form for ornament in anattempt to add a fictitious ‘spiritual’ quality to the social economy andto bind Kultur and Zivilisation together in a new organic synthesis. Butsuch a synthesis was neither possible nor necessary. An ineradicablegap had opened up between art-value and use-value. In tearing themapart, capitalism had liberated them both. Art and the design of use-objects now existed as independent and autonomous practices: ‘We aregrateful to [the nineteenth century] for the magnificent accomplish-ment of having separated the arts and the crafts once and for all.’4 Thesearch for the ‘style of the time’ that Muthesius’s types were intendedto express was still based on a nostalgia for the pre-industrial ‘organic’society. In fact, a style of the modern age already existed—in industrialproducts without any artistic pretensions:

All those trades which have managed to keep this superfluous creature [theartist] out of their workshops are at present at the peak of their ability . . .[their] products . . . capture the style of our time so well that we do not evenlook on them as having style. They have become entwined with our thoughtsand feelings. Our carriage construction, our glasses, our optical instruments,our umbrellas and canes, our luggage and saddlery, our silver cigarette cases,our jewellery . . . and clothes—they are all modern.5

The attempt consciously to create the formal ‘types’ of the new age wasdoomed to fail, just as Van de Velde’s attempt to create a new ornamenthad failed: ‘No one has tried to put his podgy finger into the turningwheel of time without having his hand torn off.’6

According to Loos, art could now survive in only two (absolutelyantithetical) forms: firstly as the free creation of works of art that nolonger had any social responsibility and were therefore able to projectideas into the future and criticize contemporary society; and secondlyin the design of buildings which embodied the collective memory.Loos schematized these buildings as Denkmal (the monument) andGrabmal (the tomb).7 For Loos, the private house belonged to the cat-egory of the useful, not to that of the monument, hence the rarity in hishouses of a fully developed classical language, except for a brief periodbetween 1919 and 1923 (see page 83).

DecorumLoos identified the surviving realm of the monument with the antique:‘The architect’, he said, ‘is a stonemason who has learned Latin,’8

echoing Vitruvius’s statement that knowledge of building growsequally out of fabrica (material) and ratio (reason).9 His attitude to the

the urn and the chamberpot: adolf loos 1900‒30 75

classical tradition differed from that of Otto Wagner or Behrens, forwhom a synthesis between art (spirit, soul) and rationality was stillpossible, and who wanted to adapt classicism to modern conditions.For Loos, as for Kraus, the antique had preserved in language thesearch for a ‘lost image of the primordial’.10 Its syntax should either beimitated to the letter, even if made with modern materials, or not at all:‘Modern architects seem more like Esperantists. Drawing instructionneeds to proceed from classical ornament.’11 By the same token, bothhe and Kraus believed in the importance of the tradition of rhetoric,particularly its distinction between genres and its concept of decorum,which divides the continuum of lived experience into discrete units. AsKraus wrote:

Adolf Loos and I, he in reality, I in words, have done nothing else than showthat there is a difference between an urn and a chamberpot and that this dif-ference is necessary because it guarantees the game of culture. The others, onthe contrary, the defenders of ‘positive’ values, are divided between those whomistake the urn for a chamberpot and those who mistake the chamberpot foran urn.12

For Loos, this sensibility of ‘difference’ was exacerbated, not elimi-nated, by the dislocations brought about by industrialization. AsMassimo Cacciari has pointed out, modernity, for Loos, was consti-tuted by different and mutually intransitive ‘language games’.13 Loosthought in terms of art and industry, art and handicraft, music anddrama, never in terms of a Gesamtkunstwerk that would synthesizethese different genres in a modern ‘community of the arts’.

In his designs for the War Ministry in Vienna (1907) and the monu-ment to the Emperor Franz Josef (1917), Loos adopted a neoclassicismwhich, though clearly mediated by the Beaux-Arts, was more literalthan the classicizing work of Wagner or Behrens. These types of build-ing belonged to the category of Denkmal. But what about thosebuildings in the public realm which could make, at best, only weakclaims to monumentality—commercial buildings? In the latter part ofhis career Loos designed several large office blocks and hotels, none ofwhich were built.

The only realized project in which Loos addressed the problem ofinserting a large commercial building in a historical urban context wasthe ‘Looshaus’ in Michaelerplatz of 1909–11 [45]. The ground floorand mezzanine of this building were to be occupied by the fashionablegentlemen’s outfitters, Goldman and Salatsch, and the upper floors byapartments. The problem faced by Loos was that of designing amodern commercial building in a fashionable shopping street close tothe Imperial Palace. Here, Loos’s idea of decorum came into full play;he decorated the lower floors, which belonged to the public realm, witha Tuscan order faced in marble, and stripped the apartment floors, with


45 Adolf LoosThe Looshaus, 1909–11,Michaelerplatz, ViennaThe lack of resolutionbetween the ornamentedmain floor and the strippedupper floors is intentionaland must be seen in relationto the architectural debatesof the time, not in terms of afuture Modernist discourse.

their purely private connotations, of all ornament. In creating a hiatusbetween two parts of the same structure, Loos turned the building intoa provocation—an illustration of his article ‘Potemkin City’,14 in whichhe had attacked the bourgeois apartment blocks on the Ringstrasse forusing false façades to look like Italian palazzi. Instead of creating aunified classical ‘palace’, Loos treated each part of the building in a wayappropriate to its function, the building’s disjunctive parts reflectingthe disjunctions of modern capitalism. Whereas Behrens in hisTurbine Factory carefully masked his distortions of the classical syntaxin order to create an apparently seamless fusion of the classical and themodern, Loos drew attention to them, presenting them in terms of an‘impossible’ juxtaposition.

The interiorNearly all of Loos’s early projects were for interior remodellings, andhe continued to do this kind of work for the rest of his career. Hisdomestic interiors resemble those of Bruno Paul and RichardRiemerschmid in their rejection of the ‘total design’ philosophy ofJugendstil in favour of separate, matching pieces of furniture (see pages


32‒3). But Loos’s critique of the Gesamtkunstwerk went further thantheirs. Unlike Bruno Paul’s rooms, where the recognizably classicalfurnishings were unified by the architect’s personal style, Loos’s interi-ors were made up of found objects. ‘The walls’, Loos said, ‘belong tothe architects . . . all mobile items are made by our craftsmen in themodern idiom (never by architects)—everyone may buy these forhimself according to his own taste and inclination.’ Loos designed veryfew pieces of furniture himself [46]. He usually specified eighteenth-century English furniture, which he had copied by the cabinet-makerJoseph Veillach. If his interiors had unity, it derived more from a selec-tive taste than from originality of design. In this, Loos’s work alsodiffered from that of Josef Hoffmann. Although Hoffmann had aban-doned curvilinear Art Nouveau for a severely rectilinear style in 1901 (afact that Loos acknowledged, attributing it, with customary modesty,to his own influence), his furniture and fittings were still covered withdecorative ‘inventions’. Loos only used natural surfaces such as marblefacings or wood panelling.15

In his interior architecture, Loos often combined classical motifswith a vernacular style directly indebted to M. H. Baillie Scott, whoseinteriors for the Grand Ducal Palace in Darmstadt (1897) had acted asa stimulant to the anti-Jugendstil reaction in Germany.16 The livingrooms in Loos’s apartments are frequently a central space with low-ceilinged alcoves. The room becomes a miniature social spacesurrounded by private sub-spaces. As in the work of Scott, consider-able use is made of exposed, dark-stained beams (as purely semanticelements; they are usually false), high timber wainscoting, and brick-

46 Adolf LoosChest of drawers, c.1900Loos’s removal of appliedornament from objects ofeveryday use was as much anattack on Jugendstil and theViennese Secession as it wason ‘ornament’ in the generalnineteenth-century sense. Itwas a return to what he saw asa mislaid classical tradition.


47 Adolf LoosScheu House, 1912, ViennaInterior view, showing thelow-ceilinged fireplacealcove, with the brickchimney breastcharacteristic of the work ofBaillie Scott. The wideopening between rooms wasprobably more indebted toAmerican houses of the sameperiod than to Englishhouses, where the roomswere generally isolated fromeach other.

faced fireplaces [47]. Loos later adapted this apartment typology to thedemands of the multi-storey house.

Loos’s commercial interiors have the same anonymous quality as hisapartments. The journal Das Interieur described Loos’s first shop forGoldman and Salatsch (1898) as follows: ‘The Viennese gentlemen’soutfitters shows unmistakably that the creator was aiming at Englishelegance, without reference to any particular model. Smooth reflectingsurfaces, narrow shapes, shining metal—these are the main elementsfrom which this impeccably fashionable interior is composed.’17 Thedecor included built-in storage units, glazed or mirrored, with closeverticals which recall Wagner’s work, as well as refined and geometricalornament reminiscent of the Wiener Werkstätte. In addition to shops,Loos designed several cafés. For the Museum Café in Vienna (1899)—which, to Loos’s delight, acquired the nickname Café Nihilismusbecause of its iconoclasm—Loos used specially designed Thonetchairs and marble tables. By contrast, in the Kärntner Bar in Vienna(1907) Loos exploits the intimacy of a small room at the same time ashe extends the space to infinity by the use of uninterrupted mirror onthe upper part of the wall [44 (see page 72)].

The houseIn his Entretiens, Viollet-le-Duc had noted a fundamental differencebetween the traditional English country house and the French maisonde plaisance.18 The English house was based on the need for privacy. Itconsisted of an aggregation of individual rooms, each with its own


48 Adolf LoosMüller House, 1929–30,PragueThis drawing shows themechanics of Loos’s conceptof the Raumplan. Changes oflevel between the receptionrooms are negotiated by acomplex arrangement ofshort stair flights.


purpose and character. The parts dominated the whole. In the Frenchhouse, on the contrary, the ruling principle was the family unit. Therooms were thinly partitioned subdivisions of a cubic volume, ensuringconstant social contact. It was the English type that became increas-ingly popular in the late nineteenth century, responding to theprevailing spirit of bourgeois individualism. What Viollet did notmention was that, under the influence of neo-medieval ideas of socialharmony, this individualism was modified by the appearance of a largecentral hall, based on the traditional English manor house.Originating with Norman Shaw in the i86os, this double-height spacebecame a prominent feature of the houses of Baillie Scott (Blackwell,Bowness, 1898), Van de Velde (Bloemenwerf, 1895), H. P. Berlage(Villa Henny, 1898), Josef Hoffmann (Palais Stoclet, 1905-11), andcountless other houses of the period.

This evolution culminated in the series of large suburban villas thatLoos built between 1910 and 1930. In these Loos converted the centralhall into an open staircase and compressed a number of highly individ-ualized rooms into a cube, thus synthesizing Viollet-le-Ducs twomodels. The greatest differentiation between the rooms occurred onthe piano nobiley where reception rooms at different levels and with dif-ferent ceiling heights were connected to each other by short flights ofstairs, their increments forming a kind of irregular spiral ascendingthrough the house [48]. Loos described this spatial organization insomewhat apocalyptic terms:

This is architecture s great revolutionary moment—the transformation of thefloor plan into volume. Before Immanuel Kant, men could not think in termsof volume; architects were forced to make the bathroom the same height as thegreat hall. The only way of creating lower ceilings . . . was to divide them inhalf. But [as] with the invention of three-dimensional chess, future architectswill now be able to expand floor plans into space.19

Loos's Raumplan (as he called it) turned the experience of the houseinto a spatio-temporal labyrinth, making it difficult to form a mentalimage of the whole. The way the inhabitant moved from one space toanother was highly controlled (though sometimes there were alterna-tive routes), but no a priori system of expectation was established, as itwould be in a classical plan. In the late Moller and Muller houses anintimate Ladies' Boudoir was added to the set of reception rooms andplaced at the highest point of the sequence, so that it acted simultane-ously as a command post and an inner sanctum.20 Often, diagonalviews were opened up through sequences of rooms [49].

In the spatial ordering of these houses, the walls played an essentialrole, both phenomenally and structurally. The variability of floor levelsdemanded that the walls (or at least their geometrical traces—some-times they are replaced by beams resting on piers) continued vertically

THE URN AND THE CHAMBERPOT: ADOLF LOOS 1900-30 8l

through all floors. Spatial continuity between rooms was created not byomitting walls but by piercing them with wide openings so that viewswere always framed and the sensation of the room’s spatial closure wasmaintained. Often the connection between rooms was only visual, asthrough a proscenium. At their interface, these spaces had a theatricalquality. Beatriz Colomina has wittily noted that in a Loos interiorsomeone always seems about to make an entrance.21 The external wallsplayed a different though equally important role. They were pierced byrelatively small openings which did not allow any sustained visualcontact with the outside world. Loos’s houses were hermetic cubes,difficult to penetrate.

When Loos said ‘The walls belong to the architect’ he did not meanthe contemporary architect, who had ‘reduced building to a graphicart’,22 but the Baumeister who fashions the object he is making directlyin three dimensions. This return to a pre-Renaissance concept con-nects Loos to the Romantic movement. Whatever the differencesbetween Loos and the Expressionist architect Bruno Taut (see pages90–2), they shared the Romantic idea that architecture should be anatural and spontaneous language.23 His Baumeister is a descendant ofthe eponymous hero of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s story Councillor Krespel. Inthis story, the Councillor, instead of using plans, traced the outline ofhis house on the ground and when the walls reached a certain heightinstructed the builder where to cut out the openings.24 The analogywith Loos seems especially apt in the case of the Rufer House (1922),with its square plan and its random windows which obey the secret ruleof the interior [50].

Externally, Loos’s villas were cubes without ornament [51]. Inreducing the outside to the barest expression of technique, Loos wasmaking a conscious analogy with modern urban man, whose standard-ized dress conceals his personality and protects him from the stress of

49 Adolf Loos (right)Moller House, 1927–8,ViennaPlan and section showing theframed vistas throughout thehouse.

50 Adolf Loos (below)Rufer House, 1922Diagrammatic elevations,showing the randomly placedwindows. This is Loos’s mostliteral reference to the housebuilt by Councillor Krespel inthe story by E. T. A.Hoffmann. Mies van derRohe, in his three brickhouses of the early 1920salso allowed the plan todictate the position and sizeof the windows.


51 Adolf LoosScheu House, 1912, ViennaThe stepped profile providesroof terraces at each floor.

the modern metropolis.25 But, in Loos’s houses, once he has penetratedthe external wall, this ‘man of nerves’ is enmeshed in a ‘feminine’ andsensuous complexity, full of those residues of cultural memory andassociation that have been banished from the building’s exterior. Thedisjunction between the inside and the outside echoes Loos’s conceptof an irrevocable split in modernity between tradition and the moderntechno-scientific world—between lived-in ‘place’ (Ort) and calculated‘space’ (Raum).26

After the First World War, Loos’s houses underwent certainchanges. Between 1919 and 1923, he designed a series of villas, none ofwhich were built, with elevations and plans that are neoclassical instyle, though in some, for example the Villa Konstadt of 1919, neo-classical symmetry and Raumplan traits coexist. At the same time,villas such as the Rufer House combined classicism in its cornices andcubic shape, with vernacular in its irregular windows. A picturesqueneoclassicism was not uncommon in central Europe at this time—wefind it, for example, in the work of Peter Behrens, Karl Moser, and JozePlecnik. But for Loos it was a complete volte-face. These houses giveback the right of monumental representation to the interior, and usethe same stylistic code for interior and exterior alike—something thatwas assiduously avoided in the pre-war houses.

But this neoclassical interlude was short-lived and Loos picked upthe thread of his earlier Raumplan designs in his three last houses: theTzara House (1926) in Paris (where Loos lived from 1923 to 1928), theMoller House in Vienna (1927–8), and the Müller House in Prague


(1929–30). Though offering the chance of a continued exploration andrefinement of the Raumplan, however, these houses were not simply areturn to his pre-war practice. The Arts and Crafts and eclectic refer-ences that had persisted in the furnishing of the earlier houses gave wayto more abstracted, rectilinear forms (although Loos continued toprovide a sense of warmth through the use of marble and wood pan-elling). These showed the influence of architects who had maturedafter the First World War, particularly Le Corbusier, who had in turnbeen deeply influenced by Loos. As in Loos’s neoclassical houses, inte-rior and exterior draw closer to each other, but in the oppositedirection—now it is the neutrality of the exterior that begins to invadethe interior [52].

The critical reception of LoosUntil the 1970s, architectural historians tended to cast Loos as a proto-Modernist and to attribute the apparent contradictions in his writingsand work to his position as a ‘transitory’ historical figure. The chiefproblem for these critics lay in what seemed to be Loos’s ambivalencetowards conflicting values of tradition and modernity. On the onehand, his harsh rejection of ornament and the applied arts and hisbelief in the implacable forces of history suggested that he had settledfor a new technical culture, devoid of the ‘aura’ of the pre-industrial

52 Adolf LoosMüller House, 1929–30,PragueView of living room, lookingtowards the dining room. Thewall between the two rooms isperforated, withoutdestroying their volumetricintegrity. Informality of livingand a dramatic sense ofanticipation are combinedwith a certain formaldecorum.


world but still somehow heir to an anonymous craft tradition. On theother hand he appeared as the defender of this tradition against theencroachments of Modernism.

However, certain critics of the 1970s argued that beneath the ‘con-tradictions’ of Loos’s thought lay a more profound consistency and thepossibility of an architecture (and by extension a culture) in whichtradition would continue to coexist in unresolved tension with a domi-nant technology.27

It is undeniable that in Loos’s architecture there is a resistance to theHegelian idea of history as a process of overcoming (Aufhebung) and atendency to create montages of different ‘languages’. Yet, Loos’smost persistent idea—that the forms of use-objects, including those ofnon-monumental architecture, should owe nothing to artistic inten-tion—seems to contradict his own practice. The removal of ornamentfrom the façades of his houses was a deliberate ‘artistic’ gesture.Certainly it was taken as such by the next generation of architects, whosought by this means to create precisely the resolution between tech-nology and art that Loos said was impossible. For Loos the unadornedfaçade concealed individuality, for Le Corbusier it revealed Platonicbeauty.


53 Antonio Sant’EliaPower Station, 1914In this set of drawingsrecognizable elements maketheir appearance: pylons,chimneys, lattice structures,and viaducts.

Around 1910, the visual arts reached a new level of abstraction, goingfurther in the rejection of the concept of art as imitation than everbefore. These new developments originated in French Post-impres-sionist and Fauve painting and quickly spread to other Europeancountries, taking the form of Expressionism in Germany and Futurismin Italy. In France, progressive art movements and conservative artinstitutions were to a large extent capable of coexistence, but when thenew formal experiments spread to Germany and Italy, they becameassociated with movements that were diametrically opposed to theacademic establishment. As a result the architectural avant-gardeswere increasingly assimilated into the sphere of the visual arts anddetached from a specifically tectonic tradition.

Both German Expressionism and Italian Futurism started as move-ments in the visual arts and literature, though they soon attractedarchitects dissatisfied both with a moribund Jugendstil and its neo-classical alternative. The Expressionists and Futurists were in closetouch with each other: the Futurists’ various manifestos were pub-lished in the Expressionist magazine Der Sturm and in 1912 theFuturists exhibited their work in Der Sturm gallery. But although theirartistic roots were the same, the two movements differed in at least onecrucial respect: while the Expressionists were torn between a Utopianview of modern technology and a Romantic nostalgia for the Volk, theFuturists totally rejected tradition, seeing in technology the basis for anew culture of the masses.

ExpressionismThe word ‘Expressionism’ was originally coined in France in 1901 todescribe the paintings of the circle of artists around Henri Matisse,who modified their representations of nature according to their ownsubjective vision. But the word did not enter international critical dis-course until 1911, when it was adopted by German critics to denoteModernist art in general and then—almost immediately afterwards—a specifically German variant.1

Expressionism was centred on three secessionist groups: the artists’

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groups Die Brücke (founded in 1905 in Dresden) and Der Blaue Reiter(founded in 1911 in Munich); and Der Sturm, a magazine and art galleryfounded in Berlin in 1910 which published poetry, drama, and fiction aswell as visual art. Expressionist painting was characterized by a tone ofextreme agonism and pathos, quite alien to the French movementsfrom which it sprang [54]. Independently of its derivation fromFrench painting, Expressionism was influenced by late-nineteenth-century German aesthetic philosophy. Particularly important wereConrad Fiedler and Adolf Hildebrand’s theory of pure visibility(Sichtbarkeit), and Robert Vischer’s theory of empathy (Einfühlung),both of which challenged the classical concept of mimesis.

But it was the more popular writings of the art historian WilhelmWorringer that exercised the most direct influence on Expressionistpainters and architects. In an essay published in Der Sturm in 1911,Worringer attributed all Modernist painting to a primitive, Teutonic‘will to expression’ (Ausdruckswollen).2 In his earlier and extremelyinfluential book Abstraction and Empathy, Worringer had foreshad-owed a nascent Expressionist movement, describing the Gothicarchitecture which would inspire it in the following emotional terms:

No organic harmony surrounds a feeling of reverence toward the world, but anever-growing, self-intensifying, restless striving without deliverance, which

54 Oskar KokoschkaMurderer, Hope of Women,1909This was Kokoschka’s posterfor his own one-act play ofthis title, first performed inVienna in 1909 andpublished by Der Sturm in1910. Kokoschka, returningto the themes of theRomantic movement, basedhis play on Heinrich vonKleist’s tragedy Penthesilia.

88 expressionism and futurism

sweeps the inharmonious psyche away with it in an extravagant ecstasy . . .The relatively calm proportions between verticals and horizontals whichprevail in Romanesque architecture are conspicuously abandoned.

Basing his argument on Riegl’s relativistic doctrine of the Kunstwollen(will to art) Worringer claimed that people failed to appreciate theGothic because they were trapped within a classical horizon. Hebelieved that by escaping from this, ‘we perceive the great beyond . . .the road that lies behind us suddenly seems small and insignificant incomparison with the infinitude that is now unfolded to our gaze’.3

Expressionist architectureExpressionist architecture is notoriously difficult to define. As IainBoyd Whyte has observed, the movement has usually been defined interms of what it is not (rationalism, functionalism, and so on) ratherthan what it is,4 and there is some truth in the opinion thatExpressionism is a permanent and recurrent tendency in modernarchitecture. Buildings which are commonly classified as Expressionistinclude such divergent groups as the early work of Hans Poelzig, theJugendstil ‘Amsterdam School’, and architects of the 1920s such asErich Mendelsohn and Hugo Häring; but these are also often morefruitfully discussed in other contexts. Here, we will concentrate onwhat is generally recognized as the crowning period of Expressionismas a multi-genre and politically involved movement between 1914 and1921. The focus will be on the group that formed round the architectBruno Taut (1880–1930) during this period, the most importantmembers of which—beside Taut himself—were Walter Gropius andthe critic and art historian Adolf Behne (1885–1948).

Although Adolf Behne was the first to use the term ‘Expressionist’in connection with architecture (in an article in Der Sturm of 1915), it isprobably an article by Taut of February 1914 in the same journal—enti-tled ‘A Necessity’—which has a more legitimate claim to being the first‘manifesto’ of Expressionist architecture.5 This article repeats severalof Worringer’s ideas. Taut notes that painting is becoming moreabstract, synthetic, and structural and sees this as heralding a new unityof the arts. ‘Architecture wants to assist in this aspiration.’ It shoulddevelop a new ‘structural intensity’ based on expression, rhythm, anddynamics, as well as on new materials such as glass, steel, and concrete.This intensity will go ‘far beyond the classical ideal of harmony’. Heproposes that a stupendous structure be built in which architectureshall once again become the home of the arts as it was in medievaltimes. One of the most striking features of this article is the view it pre-sents of architecture as following the lead of painting. In spite of its useof the Romantic image of the cathedral as a Gesamtkunstwerk, there is

expressionism and futurism 89

no mention of the crafts. And, where Loos had seen architecture asbound either to the antique or to the vernacular, Taut saw it as belong-ing to the free, Utopian realm that Loos had reserved exclusively forpainting (see page 75).

55 Bruno TautHausdesHimmels, 1919This drawing appeared inTaut's magazine Fruhlicht. Itwas one of his manyrepresentations of theStadtkrone, which hereappears as a star-shapedlight-emitting crystal.

Bruno TautBruno Taut was the leading architect associated with the Berlin wingof the Expressionist movement. After studying with Theodor Fischerin Munich from 1904 to 1908, Taut opened a practice in Berlin withFranz Hoffmann. Later his brother Max joined him, but although theyshared the same architectural ideals, they never collaborated on pro-jects. Bruno Taut appears to have conceived of architecture asoperating between two extreme poles: practical individual dwellingsand symbolic public buildings6 binding the individual and the Volk in atranscendental unity. Throughout the early part of his career Tautworked simultaneously at both these poles, emphasizing one or theother according to what he saw to be the objective needs of themoment.

Much of the early work of his practice consisted of low-costhousing within a Garden City context. One of the most original fea-tures of this work was the use of colour on the external surfaces of

90 EXPRESSIONISM AND FUTURISM

56 Bruno TautSnow, Ice, Glass, from AlpineArchitektur, 1919In this and other images inthe book the ‘real’ world ofthe Volk, with its little housesand allotments, is almostentirely dissolved by anapocalyptic vision of thealchemical transformation ofmatter into spirit.

buildings—a motif that Taut continued to pursue throughout hiscareer.7 Simultaneously he was developing the concepts of the Volkhaus(house of the people) and the Stadtkrone (city crown), first outlined inhis article ‘A Necessity’. In these two closely related concepts he soughtto define a structure that would capture the essence of the medieval cityin modern terms. He visualized it as ‘a crystal building of colouredglass’ that would ‘shine like a sparkling diamond’8 over each newGarden City, a secular version of the medieval cathedral [55]. Duringthe First World War, in a period of forced inactivity, Taut prepared twobooks, Die Stadtkrone and Alpine Architektur, both published in 1919.The first was concerned mainly with historical examples of buildingssymbolizing the Volk. The second contained apocalyptic visions of animaginary architecture, mixing images and texts rather in the mannerof a Baroque emblem book [56].

Before writing these two books, Taut had already built the ‘GlassPavilion’ at the Werkbund exhibition of 1914 in Cologne. This building


anticipated the Volkhaus in miniature [57]. Financed by a group of glassmanufacturers, it was at once an exhibition of glass products, a ‘houseof art’, and a sort of allegory. The visitor was guided through asequence of sensuously calibrated spaces in which the effects ofcoloured glass and cascading water predominated, experiencing anascent from telluric darkness to Apollonian clarity.

Both the Glass Pavilion and the two wartime books owed much tothe ideas of Taut’s friend, the novelist Paul Scheerbart (1836–1915),described by Herwarth Walden, editor of Der Sturm, as ‘the firstExpressionist’. In a series of proto-science-fiction novels, culminatingin Glasarchitektur of 1914, Scheerbart described, sometimes in greattechnical detail, a universal architecture of glass and steel—transpar-ent, colourful, and mobile—that would usher in a new age of socialharmony. Scheerbart’s Utopia was largely derived from writers of theRomantic period, particularly Novalis, who had revived the light andcrystal symbolism of Judeo-Christian and Islamic mysticism(Scheerbart himself had studied Sufi mysticism).9

Taut’s ideas on urbanism should also be seen in another context—that of the contemporary international movement in town planning,which flourished in both Europe and America. This movement,which has been briefly discussed on page 49, was an outgrowth of boththe Garden City and the City Beautiful movements. Taut’s Utopiancity with its central symbolic building has a family resemblance to suchvisionary projects as the World City dedicated to world peace, pro-

57 Bruno TautGlass Pavilion, WerkbundExhibition, 1914, CologneIn Taut’s exhibition building,a 12-sided drum faced withglass bricks supports a ribbeddome of coloured glass.


58 Hans PoelzigGrosses Schauspielhaus,1919, Berlin (demolishedc.1980)This building was notable forits colour: burgundy redexternally and yellow in theauditorium. Colour was animportant aspect ofExpressionism’s populistphilosophy and Taut was notits only exponent.

moted by the industrialist and railway developer Paul Otlet, anddesigned by Ernst Hébrard and Hendrik Andersen in 1912.10

Several projects in Germany belonging to the period during ordirectly after the First World War can be compared to Taut’s idea ofthe Stadtkrone, if only because they too in some measure were intendedto act as social condensers in a new age of mass culture. The theatre,because of its close connection with Richard Wagner’s idea of theGesamtkunstwerk, is a particularly important type within this genre.11

One of the most ambitious theatre projects was the GrossesSchauspielhaus in Berlin of 1919. Popularly known as the ‘The Theatreof 5000’, it was designed by Hans Poelzig and commissioned by theimpresario and director Max Reinhardt [58]. This huge theatre—adapted from an existing market hall that had already been convertedinto a circus—was the result of Reinhardt’s involvement with thePeople’s Theatre movement, which had spread rapidly in Germany inthe late nineteenth century.12 Poelzig designed the interior as a fantas-tic spectacle. The ceilings were covered with plaster stalactites,simultaneously recalling a grotto and the Alhambra in Granada.Externally, the almost windowless walls were faced with close-setRundbogenstil pilasters very like those of the thirteenth-centurymonastery of Chorin, favourite haunt of the Wandervogel movement,to which Bruno Taut and Adolf Behne had belonged in their youth.13


59 Wassili LuckhardtProject for a People’sTheatre, 1921, external view,plan, and sectionThis building takes theziggurat form common inExpressionist publicbuildings. The stage tower,usually an intractableproblem for architects, iseasily absorbed into itsmountain-like profile.


60 Otto BartningSternkirche, 1922This project is areinterpretation of Gothicarchitecture. The structure,spatial form, and system ofdaylighting are all integrated.

Besides the Grosses Schauspielhaus, several other contemporaryprojects were inspired by the idea of a public building able to focus thelife of the Volk. Three of these may be mentioned because of their use ofthe new Expressionist manner to communicate directly with the publicon an emotional level: a People’s Theatre project (1921) by WassiliLuckhardt (1889–1972) [59], the Sternkirche project (1922) by OttoBartning (1883–1959) [60], and a Goetheanum at Dornach (1924–8) byRudolf Steiner (1861–1925) [61]. All these structures were intended asthe symbols and instruments of a dawning age of mass culture, servingcommercial, festive, recreational or religious purposes.

Expressionism and politicsTaut’s city crown was an attempt to give artistic form to PyotrKropotkin’s anarchism.14 Based on the idea of dispersed Garden Citiesas the alternatives to the modern metropolis, it represented an anti-urban ideology which—for all their ideological differences—wasshared by the radical conservatives.15 But, despite his antagonism tomany aspects of Marxism, Taut supported workers’ councils and, likemany other Expressionists, became involved with the revolution thatswept Germany in 1918. With Gropius and Behne, he founded theArbeitsrat fur Kunst (AFK). This was a trade union of artists modelledon the workers’ soviets that were a feature of the revolution, and moreparticularly on the Proletarian Council of Intellectual Workers, anoutgrowth of Kurt Hiller’s Activist literary movement. Taking his cuefrom the political ambitions of that movement, Taut envisaged a groupof architects within the AFK who would take control of every aspect ofthe visual environment. In an open letter of November 1918 addressed‘To the Socialist Government’, he wrote:

Art and life must form a unity. Art should no longer be the delight of the few,but the good fortune of the life of the masses. The aim is the fusion of the artsunder the wing of a great architecture . . . From now on, the artist alone will bethe modeller of the sensibilities of the Volk, responsible for the visible fabric ofthe new state. He must determine the form-giving process from the statueright down to coin and the postage stamp.16


When the AFK failed to interest the government in these proposals,Taut conceived the idea of an ‘Exhibition for Unknown Architects’which would appeal directly to the people, but he resigned the chair-manship before it came to fruition, being succeeded by Walter Gropius.

Gropius agreed with Taut’s reformist aims but not with hisprovocative methods. With his accession to the chairmanship, theAFK abandoned its revolutionary programme, moving ‘to the rightpolitically and to the left artistically’.17 Gropius’s aim was to turn theAFK into a small group of radical architects, painters, and sculptors,concerned only with artistic matters—a ‘conspiratorial brotherhood’working secretly and avoiding a head-on collision with the artestablishment. But even these plans evaporated when, in December1919, the AFK ran out of money and was absorbed by theNovembergruppe. Gropius had meanwhile become the director of theBauhaus (Spring 1919) and this now became the centre of his long-term plans to unify the arts under the leadership of architecture withina social-democratic framework. During the following year Tauthimself abandoned revolutionary politics and began to concentrate onthe design of social housing.

The Exhibition for Unknown ArchitectsThe most important event during Gropius’s leadership of the AFKwas the Exhibition for Unknown Architects, mounted in April 1919.As already mentioned, the exhibition had been proposed by Tautbefore his resignation. Entry was not restricted to architects, andentrants were encouraged to submit visionary schemes unrestricted by

61 Rudolf SteinerGoetheanum, 1924–8,DornachIn this building exposedreinforced concrete is usedas both structure and skin.Curved and planar formsmerge to form a continuoussurface.


62 Hermann FinsterlinTraum aus Glas, 1920Although Finsterlin’sdrawings wereenthusiastically accepted forthe Exhibition for UnknownArchitects by Gropius andBehne, Taut was lessenthusiastic, criticizing themas formalistic, though heprobably disliked the overtlysexual imagery.

programmatic or aesthetic constraints. Though it was unsuccessful inits popularizing aims, it turned out to be an event of great significancein the history of modern architecture.

The work shown at the exhibition fell into two more or less distinctcategories. The first comprised drawings depicting possible buildings,however unconventional, of two formal types: the crystalline–geometrical and the amorphous–curvilinear. The amorphous type wasrepresented exclusively by the work of Hermann Finsterlin [62], whilethe work of most exhibitors belonged to the crystalline type [63]. The


63 Wenzel HablikExhibition Building, 1920Hablik’s faceted, pyramidalconstructions were close toTaut’s crystalline ideal.

second category consisted of pictorial fantasies that made use of archi-tectural subject matter [64]. Whereas the first category representedobjects naturalistically, the second tended to be anti-naturalistic: evenwhen implying depth the images were two-dimensional in a way thatsuggested primitive or child art, and were often deliberately fantastic,even absurd.

Images similar to those shown at the exhibition appear in the lettersof the Gläserne Kette (Glass Chain)—a group of architects and artistsclose to Taut, who began a correspondence in 1919 (on Taut’s initiative)for the purpose of exchanging architectural ideas and fantasies. Manyof the drawings originating in the Glass Chain were subsequently pub-lished by Taut in his magazine Frühlicht (Dawn) (1920–2).

Dada and ExpressionismSome of the pictorial fantasies exhibited in the Exhibition for UnknownArchitects were by artists associated with the Berlin Dada movement—for example Jefim Golyscheff and Raoul Hausmann. The work of thisgroup stands somewhat apart from that of the main group of Expres-sionists, not only in terms of artistic technique but also in terms ofideology. The Berlin Dada movement had emerged from Expressionistcabaret, but its rhetoric was often activist in tone and it rejected theExpressionist belief that ethical and cultural change could be effected bya ‘spiritual’ revolution. ‘It is a false notion’, wrote Dadaist RichardHülsenbeck in 1917, ‘that an improvement in the world can be achievedvia the power of intellectuals’.18 Two years later Hausmann, Hülsen-beck, and Golyscheff wrote a satirical manifesto calling for a ‘battlemost brutal against all schools of so-called Geistige Arbeiter [spiritual

64 Jefim GolyscheffLittle Houses withIlluminated Roofs, 1920Golyscheff’s drawings, likethose of Raoul Hausmann,are derived from children’sdrawings. They convertstereotypical images ofarchitecture into playful andfantastic pictorial forms.


worker] . . . against their concealed middle-classness and againstExpressionism and neoclassical culture as represented by Der Sturm.19

The Dadaists belonged to the extreme Left and had supported theCommunist Spartacus League which led a workers' uprising inJanuary 1919. In contrast to the earnestness of the AFK, they used theweapons of mockery and ridicule to discredit the Expressionist move-ment, which in their opinion had betrayed the revolution of 1918 bysiding with the Social Democrats rather than the Communists. In thestyle of their rhetoric and in some of their formal techniques, thoughnot in their ideology, the Dadaists owed a great debt to Marinetti andthe Futurists. It is to this movement that we will now turn.

FuturismThe last quarter of the nineteenth century had seen an unprecedenteddevelopment of new technologies, including electric light, the tele-phone, and the automobile. Futurism was the first artistic movementto see these developments as necessarily implying a total revolution ineveryday culture. Whereas previous avant-gardes, from Art Nouveauto Expressionism, had sought to rescue tradition by means of the verymodernity that threatened to destroy it, Futurism advocated the oblit-eration of all traces of traditional culture and the creation of a totallynew, machine-based culture of the masses.

The movement, based in Milan, was 'founded' when the writerFilippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) published 'The Foundationand Manifesto of Futurism'20 on the front page of the Parisian dailynewspaper Le Figaro in 1909. The manifesto was a hymn of praise tothe total mechanization of life. Marinetti's ideas were strongly influ-enced not only by Henri Bergson, with his concept of reality as process,but also by Georges Sorel who, in his book Reflections on Violence(1908), had promoted the idea of a spontaneous activism based onmyth, arguing that violence was a necessary and purifying force in thepolitical life of the proletariat. Combining two apparently contradic-tory ideas, anarchism and nationalism, Marinetti believed that thespontaneous vitality of the masses had to be harnessed by an elite to theinterests of the state. As he was to write in the 19208: 'We should aspireto the creation of a type of man who is not human, from whom willhave been eliminated moral pain, goodness, and love, the passions thatalone can corrode inexhaustible vital energy.'21 Marinetti deliberatelyaimed at a mass audience. In attacking humanist values he made use ofa wide range of rhetorical devices, including burlesque, parody, andhyperbole, as well as of sheer buffoonery. In his use of new grammaticaland typographical forms he transformed the medium of the manifestointo a literary genre in its own right—one that was to exert a stronginfluence on Dada and the Russian avant-garde.22

EXPRESSIONISM AND FUTURISM 99

Between 1909 and 1914 Marinetti and a small group of writers,painters, and musicians published about 50 manifestos on every con-ceivable aspect of cultural life, deliberately mixing high and low artforms. These manifestos contained ideas that have remained impor-tant sources for all subsequent avant-gardes and neo-avant-gardes.The chief theoretical statement of the movement was ‘The TechnicalManifesto of Futurist Painting’,23 published in April 1910 and signedby the painters Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916), Carlo Carrà, LuigiRussolo, Giacomo Balla, and Gino Severini. The manifesto sought toadapt the mimetic practices of art to epistemological changes impliedby nineteenth-century mathematics and physics, especially in the rep-resentation of change and movement. The theory that it presented wasa kind of subjective realism, strongly influenced, as was Expressionism,by late-nineteenth-century German aesthetic philosophy, much ofwhich had been translated into Italian,24 as well as by non-Euclideangeometry and Einsteinian physics. The painting, it was argued, shouldno longer be conceived as the imitation of an external scene but as theregistration of the mental states caused by the scene. Both painter andobject were seen to occupy a unified spatio-temporal field: ‘The gesturethat we would reproduce will no longer be a fixed moment in a univer-sal dynamism, it will be the dynamism itself.’25 Later, Boccioni gavethis idea more precision:

This synthesis—given the tendency to render the concrete in terms of theabstract—can be expressed only . . . by precisely dimensioned geometricalforms, instead of by traditional methods (now devalued by the mechanicalmedia) . . . If we thus make use of mathematical objects, it is the relationbetween them that will provide the rhythm and the emotion.26

The Futurists became aware of Cubism in 1911 and quickly assimilatedits techniques. Boccioni’s susceptibility to Cubism and collage isshown in his description of his own subsequent practice: ‘The disloca-tion and dismemberment of objects . . . freed from accepted logic andindependent from each other.’27 Yet the contradiction betweenCubism’s demand for the autonomy of art and the Futurists’ desire tofuse art and life was never fully resolved. This was to remain one of themain doctrinal conflicts in the history of Modernism, as we shall seewhen we consider the development of Modernist architecture after theFirst World War.

Futurism and architectureTwo manifestos of Futurist architecture were written early in 1914. Thefirst was by 20-year-old Enrico Prampolini, who belonged to theRoman branch of the movement, and the second was by Boccioni(although it was not published until 1960). Boccioni’s manifesto bears a


65 Umberto BoccioniDynamism of a SpeedingHorse + Houses, 1914–15In this sculpture the artistconformed to the programmeof the ‘Technical Manifesto ofFuturist Sculpture’,published in 1910. The figureis an assemblage of materialforms which are relatedmetonymically to the objectthey represent. Itcorresponds to Marinetti’sdescription of Futurist poetryas being a ‘spontaneouscurrent of analogies’,replacing traditionalmimesis.

definite relationship to his ‘Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture’(1910).28 In the latter text, Boccioni saw the sculptural figure as nolonger isolated from its surrounding space: ‘We must split open thefigure and place the environment inside it’ [65]. In his ‘TechnicalManifesto of Futurist Architecture’,29 he arrives at the same idea. Themodern city can no longer be thought of as a series of static panoramasas in the past, but as an enveloping environment in a constant state offlux. He sees the outside of the individual building, analogously, asbroken up in response to the pressures of the interior. In both sculptureand architecture, therefore, Boccioni proposes to absorb the art workback into the world, so that it will become an intensification of theenvironment, not something idealistically set against it.

Antonio Sant’EliaThe probable reason that Boccioni’s architectural manifesto remainedunpublished despite its obvious importance was that in July 1914another such manifesto was written by Antonio Sant’Elia (1888–1916).This architect’s accession to the Futurist movement coincided with anexhibition of the work of a rival group of artists, the Nuove Tendenze,in which Sant’Elia showed an extraordinary series of perspective


66 Antonio Sant’EliaModern Building, 1913This drawing still retains thecompositional characteristicsof Wagnerschule andBaroque drawings,dramatizing the subject bythe use of oblique and low-viewpoint perspective.


67 Joze PlecnikSketch, 1899An undoubted source forSant’Elia’s power stations.

drawings representing his idea of the architecture of the future. Therelationship between these drawings and the Futurist movement haslong been the subject of controversy.

The ideas expressed in Sant'Elia's 'Manifesto of Futurist Archi-tecture'30 and in the slightly shorter version of it published in theexhibition catalogue (the 'Messaggio'31), correspond closely with theideology of the movement, but the drawings themselves seem to con-tradict it in important ways. It is likely that Sant'Elia had been incontact with the Futurists for some time, and that behind the mani-festo and the 'Messaggio' there existed an urtext written in part byMarinetti or Boccioni or both, so as to provide the appropriate stylistic(if not intellectual) credentials. This may explain the reason for the dis-crepancies between the drawings and the text, but the discrepanciesthemselves need further elucidation.32

Except for three very small structures, Sant'Elia's legacy consistsexclusively of architectural drawings. These are either for actual butunbuilt projects, mostly fa9ade studies, or perspectives of an imagi-nary architecture. The fafades are in a highly ornamentedLiberty-Secessionist style and Sant'Elia continued to produce suchwork until his death. The perspectives are of three kinds. The first aretotally unornamented, astylar compositions with generic titles such as'Modern building', 'Monument', and 'Industrial building', dated 1913[66]. Almost certainly these drawings were influenced by the pho-tographs of North American grain silos illustrated by Gropius in theJahrbuch des Deutschen Werkbundes of 1913, and quite possibly by thestage designs of Gordon Craig and Adolfe Appia.33 The second kind isa set of drawings in which similarly abstract forms are adapted to oneparticular industrial building type: the hydroelectric power station—atype of building almost synonymous with the rapid industrializationof the Po Valley in the first years of the twentieth century [53 (seepage 86) and 67].

Finally there is a set of drawings entitled La Citta Nuova (The NewCity). These are very detailed and their technique is harsher and lessatmospheric [68]. Stepped-back floors of multi-storey apartmentblocks (resembling the powerful sloping walls of the hydroelectricdams) are contrasted with vertical elevator towers, to which they areconnected by bridges. The ground is completely eroded with a multi-level network of transport viaducts. The drawings depict a city fromwhich all traces of nature have been removed, a city dominated by aplethora of horizontal and vertical distribution systems, against whichthe fa$ades of the apartment units seem to play a passive and secondaryrole. Sant'Elia took elements of his city from various sources, includ-ing popular illustrations of the New York City of the future, HenriSauvage's Maison a Gradins in Paris (1912), and above all OttoWagner's drawings of his new transport infrastructure for Vienna


[69]. Out of such ‘found’ elements Sant’Elia created a synthesis whichwas, from a pictorial point of view, utterly convincing.

But, impressive as Sant’Elia’s drawings are in their dramatic repre-sentation of the city of the future, their forms and technique contradictmany of the ideas put forward in the Futurist manifestos. While themanifestos stress lightness, permeability, and practicality, the drawingsexpress mass and monumentality; while the manifestos place the spec-tator within the work, the drawings imply that the viewer is an externalobserver by providing a panoramic and perspectival view of the world;while the manifestos condemn static, pyramidal forms, the drawingsabound in them.

In fact, Sant’Elia’s drawings are also derived from the work ofstudents of the Austrian Academy of Fine Arts (the Wagnerschule) at

68 Antonio Sant’EliaLa Città Nuova, 1914In the set to which thisdrawing belongs, theelements of the two previoussets are transformed into amechanized urbanlandscape. The multi-leveltransport viaducts and theirattendant pylons are derivedfrom Otto Wagner’s ViennaStadtbahn. Although humanbeings are absent, the pylonsstand around like calcifiedgiants.


69 Otto WagnerProject for theFerdinandsbrucke, 1905,Vienna

the turn of the twentieth century [70]. The truncated, abstract formsof these designs, set at an oblique angle and seen from a low level,reappear in most of Sant'Elia's drawings. Sant'Elia's technique of rep-resentation had been developed during his studies at the BreraAcademy under Giuseppe Mentessi, by whom he was introduced tolate Baroque theatre design with its system of oblique perspective(scena per ango/o).34 Indeed, Sant'Elias drawings are less those of anarchitect than of a vedutista in the tradition of Piranesi and theBibienas. They offer an objectified spectacle far removed fromBoccioni's conception of the spiritualized and transparent object, andpresent a striking contrast with Futurist images such as Boccioni's 'X-Ray'-like axonometric drawing Table + bottle + houses [71].

Sant'Elia's drawings are not the only contemporary avant-gardeworks that betray Jugendstil and Secessionist influences. Most of thearchitecture usually characterized as Expressionist is close to the samesource. In fact, in Expressionism and Futurism alike, there exists anunresolved tension between emotional and analytical approaches—between an attitude towards the modern in which feelings areprojected onto technology (just as the Romantics had projected theirsonto nature), and an attitude that seeks to engage with technology onits own terms—from within, as it were.35 For all his use of scientific and


70 Emil HoppeSketch for a tower, 1902The sloping walls and lowviewpoint of this drawingreappear in Sant’Elia’sdrawings


71 Umberto BoccioniTable + Bottle + Houses,1912In this axonometric drawing,the solid objects havebecome transparent as in anX-ray. For Boccioni,axonometric projection wasassociated with the fourthdimension and space–time—as it would be for vanDoesburg.

mathematical analogies, Boccioni himself resisted in many ways theonset of the age of mechanical reproduction which he himself hadannounced, stressing the act by which the artist’s hand transforms thematerial and rejecting—for example—photography, with its imper-sonal and mechanical procedures. In the end, therefore, Sant’Elia’s‘excitable’ reaction to technology may not be so far removed from thatof Boccioni, whose work seems so much more ‘modern’. The factremains, however, that Sant’Elia’s vision of the future was that of a lateRomantic, and that his influence on the next generation of architectswas limited. By contrast, the influence of Futurism in the othergenres—sculpture, graphics, theatre, music, and photography—wasvery considerable.

In trying to place Expressionism and Futurism in a historical perspec-tive, a salient fact emerges: both movements, whatever their otherdifferences, rejected the Enlightenment tradition of reason andstressed the importance of myth and instinct in the social life ofnations. They denounced a rationalistic civilization which theybelieved had sown discord in a previously unified and organic society.They espoused a set of ideas—anti-materialist, anti-liberal-democra-tic and anti-Marxist—which became increasingly influential in thecountries of western Europe in the years leading up to the First WorldWar and which, in their extreme form, found political expression in theFascism and National Socialism of the inter-war years.


Detail of 77 Theo vanDoesburgCounter-construction(Construction de l’Espace-Temps II), 1924

As in the case of Expressionism and Futurism, the architectural avant-gardes in Holland and Russia were at first dominated by painting andsculpture. In both countries formal experiments that were possible intheoretical or small-scale projects met with considerable resistancewhen applied to the constructional and programmatic needs of build-ings. After the First World War, as soon as the economic and politicalsituation allowed building to resume, architectural projects in bothcountries began to take on the characteristics of a more sober, interna-tional architecture and to lose national traits which had originatedlargely from interpretations of Cubism, Expressionism, and Futurism.This chapter will describe these national movements—De Stijl inHolland; Suprematism, Rationalism, and Constructivism in Russia—and their transition to a Europe-wide ‘Modern Movement’ (alsoknown as ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’, ‘Functionalism’, ‘Rationalism’, or‘Neues Bauen’).

In both the Dutch and the Russian avant-gardes, the logic of themachine became the model for art and architecture; the mind was con-sidered to be able to create form independently of traditional craft,implying a new alliance between painting, architecture, and mathe-matical reason. Art and architecture were seen as impersonal andobjective and not based on individual ‘taste’.

The avant-garde in HollandTwo opposed movements in architecture and the decorative arts flour-ished in Holland during and immediately after the First WorldWar—the Amsterdam School and De Stijl. Both these movementswere related to Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement as wellas to German Expressionism; both believed in a unified style reflectingthe spirit of the age; both inherited the Morrisian idea that societycould be transformed by art; and both rejected the eclectic use of paststyles, striving for a new, uncoded architecture. But each inherited adifferent strand of the earlier movements—the vitalistic, individualis-tic strand in the case of the Amsterdam School and the rationalist,

109

6

The Avant-gardesin Holland andRussia

impersonal strand in the case of De Stijl. Each movement condemnedthe other, ignoring their shared aims and origins.1

The work of the Amsterdam School—whose chief exponent wasMichel de Klerk (1884–1923)—was characterized by the use of traditionalmaterials, in particular brick, and the free, fantastical but craftsman-likeworking of these materials. The forms of traditional architecture werenot so much abandoned as transformed and made strange. Much ofthe most important work of the Amsterdam School was built between1914 and 1923 and is to be found in the many public housing projectsthat were part of the vast urban renewal programme being undertakenin Amsterdam at the time under the direction of Berlage.

De StijlThe De Stijl movement, though its origins lay, like those of theAmsterdam School, in the decorative arts, developed an ornamenta-tion that reflected the influence of Cubism and rejected craftsmanshipin favour of a geometrical anti-naturalism. In 1917 the painter Theo vanDoesburg (1883–1931) published the first issue of De Stijl, a magazinepromoting modern art. The term ‘De Stijl’ is normally applied to boththe magazine and the movement to which it gave its name. The origi-nal group included the painters Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), vanDoesburg, Vilmos Huszar (1884–1960), and Bart van der Leck(1876–1958), the sculptor Georges Vantongerloo (1886–1965), and thearchitects Jan Wils (1891–1927), Robert van’t Hoff (1887–1979), GerritRietveld (1888–1964), and J. J. P. Oud (1890–1963). The group’s identity,however, had less to do with its specific membership, which was highlyvolatile, than with its doctrine as defined in the first De Stijl Manifestoof 1918 and in later issues of the magazine. De Stijl was edited and dom-inated by van Doesburg and became an important organ of theinternational avant-garde until it ceased publication in 1932.

TheoryThe theoretical apparatus of De Stijl was a variant of existing (mostlySymbolist and Futurist-derived) doctrine, and the movement sawitself as a crusade in the common cause of Modernism. It maintainedclose ties with avant-garde movements in the different arts abroad,including Dada (van Doesburg himself, under the pseudonym AldoCamini, published Dada poetry in De Stijl).

The three main postulates of the movement can be roughly sum-marized as follows: each art form must realize its own nature based onits materials and codes—only then can the generative principlesgoverning all the visual arts (indeed, all art) be revealed; as the spiritualawareness of society increases, so will art fulfil its historical (Hegelian)

110 the avant-gardes in holland and russia

destiny and become reabsorbed into daily life; art is not opposed toscience and technology—both art and science are concerned with thediscovery and demonstration of the underlying laws of nature and notwith nature’s superficial and transient appearance (the theory,however, did not take into account the possibility art could still be aform of imitation).

De Stijl belonged to the millennialist tradition of Expressionismand Futurism. Although it lacked any obvious political dimension, itwas nonetheless Utopian; it imagined a future in which social divisionswould be dissolved and power dispersed. It combined a commitmentto modernity with an idealism that associated scientific and technicalchange with spiritual as well as material progress. The metaphysics ofthe movement were to a large extent taken from the Theosophist andNeoplatonist M. J. H. Schoenmaeker, whose book The Principles ofPlastic Mathematics (1916) claimed that plastic mathematics was a ‘pos-itive mysticism’ in which ‘we translate reality into constructionscontrolled by our reason, later to recover these constructions in nature,thus penetrating matter with plastic vision’. Schoenmaeker believedthat the new plastic expression (‘Neoplasticism’), born of light andsound, would create a heaven on earth.2

The two main theorists of the movement were Mondrian and vanDoesburg, but they by no means agreed on all points of doctrine.Mondrian’s concept of Neoplasticism, based partly on Schoenmaekerand partly on Kandinsky’s influential book Uber das Geistige in derKunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) of 1911, was restricted to paint-ing, whereas van Doesburg attempted to apply it to architecture aswell. Although both Huszar and Van der Leck made important contri-butions to the early development of Neoplasticism, it was Mondrianwho worked out its logical implications. The system that he eventuallyarrived at was based on a radical process of reduction in which thecomplex, accidental appearance of nature was refined to the variationsof an irregular orthogonal grid, partly filled in with rectangles ofprimary colour [72]. According to Yve-Alain Bois, Mondrian org-anizes the picture surface in such a way that the traditional hierarchybetween figural objects and an illusionistic ground is abolished. InMondrian, ‘no element is more important than any other, and nonemust escape integration’.3 These structural principles of non-redun-dancy and non-hierarchy are similar to those underlying Schoenberg’satonal and serial music.4 In traditional painting it is the figural objectthat conveys the symbolic or lyrical content (as does melody in music);5

in Mondrian’s paintings the meaning is transposed from the repre-sented object to the abstract organization of the two-dimensionalsurface—an effect analogous to Boccioni’s idea that it was no longerobjects (reduced to lines, planes, and so on) that provided rhythm andemotion, but the relations between them (see page 100).

the avant-gardes in holland and russia 111

The relation between architecture and paintingIn the early phase of the De Stijl movement, there was an emphasis onthe collaboration between architecture and painting. The followingremarks by Van der Leck are typical of this position:

Modern painting has now arrived at the point at which it may enter into col-laboration with architecture. It has arrived at this point because its means ofexpression have been purified. The description of time and space by meansof perspective has been abandoned; it is the flat surface itself that transmitsspatial continuity . . . Painting today is architectural because in itself and by itsown means it serves the same concept as architecture.6

This statement is in many ways unclear. For example, if it is true thatpainting and architecture are becoming increasingly indistinguishable,what sense does it make to say that they should enter into a collabora-tion? Collaboration can only take place between things that aredifferent—as in the Wagnerian concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk.

During the 1920s, a split between painters and architects devel-oped, epitomized by a correspondence that took place between J. J. P.Oud and Mondrian. In this correspondence, Mondrian claimed that

72 Piet MondrianComposition 1 with Red,Yellow and Blue, 1921This was one of a group ofpaintings begun in 1920 inwhich Mondrian first arrivedat an organization that wasneither a repetitive grid northe representation of a figureupon a ground.


73 Vilmos HuszarSpatial Colour Compositionfor a Stairwell, 1918While in traditionalarchitecture decoration wasconsidered supplementary tothe constructed surfaces of abuilding, in De Stijl therectangles of primary colourapplied to the walls werethought of as an integral partof the architecture itself,modifying the space definedby the walls.

painting was able to anticipate the desired merging of art and life pre-cisely because it remained on the level of representation, and was not,like architecture, compromised by its immersion in reality. Until archi-tecture freed itself from this condition, it could not participate in themovement towards the unification of art and life. For Oud, on theother hand, if art was eventually to merge with life, it could only be atthe level of existing reality. Far from being antagonistic to the purifica-tion of artistic form, the principles of utility and function wereinseparable from it (in this Oud’s position was the same as that of LeCorbusier). Mondrian’s extreme idealism and Oud’s aesthetic materi-alism were incapable of finding common ground.7

Van Doesburg’s position differed from that of both Oud andMondrian. He accepted Mondrian’s idealist resistance to the pragmat-ics of architecture, but he believed that architecture, by the very factthat it existed in real as opposed to virtual three-dimensional space,would play a privileged role in achieving the union of life and art. Theideal (which he shared with the Futurists) of an observer no longer sep-arated from that which was observed, was already immanent inarchitecture and needed only to be brought out.

The interiorThe Decorative Arts movement (Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau)had sought to unify the visual arts and architecture. But this had onlyfleetingly been achieved, in the person of the ‘artist–craftsman’. One of


the aims of the De Stijl artists was to occupy the void created by thedemise of this artist–craftsman, but to occupy it as painters. In 1918, vanDoesburg decorated the interiors of a house by J. J. P. Oud (The DeVonk House, 1917–18) with coloured floor tiles and stained-glasswindows which were simply added to the architectural framework. Butin the same year, both Van der Leck and Huszar took a more holisticapproach, either by designing and colouring all the tectonic elements ofa room—doors, cupboards, furniture—so as to create a unity ofrhyming rectangular forms, or by applying colour patches to walls andceilings, often ‘against the grain’ of the architectural structure [73]. Theeffect of these interventions was to merge structure, ornament, and fur-niture in a new unity. The difference between ground (architecture)and figure (ornament, furniture, etc.) was erased, reversing the trendinitiated by the interiors exhibited in Germany around 1910 by, forexample, Bruno Paul, and reverting to the Jugendstil practice of treat-ing the interior as an indivisible, abstract unity—as in Van de Velde andWright.

Van Doesburg and architectureIn external form, the influence of De Stijl as well as that of Wrightcan already be seen in several architectural projects in Holland in theperiod immediately after the First World War. In these the geo-metrical, horizontal, and vertical elements that emphasized the mainforms still looked like ornamental additions to the structure—forexample in the work of Jan Wils and Robert van’t Hoff [74]. VanDoesburg also experimented in external architectural forms, but his

74 Jan WilsDe Dubbele Sleutel, 1918Here the building mass isbroken up into cubic volumesroughly in the form of apyramid. The horizontal andvertical planes are accentu-ated by cornices, stringcourses, chimneys, in themanner of Frank LloydWright.


75 Theo van Doesburg andHansVogelStudies for PurelyArchitectural SculptureResulting from Ground Plan,1921In this study theasymmetrical pyramidalcomposition of cubicvolumes is strictly generatedfrom the plan. All ornamentalaccentuation has beeneliminated.

approach was different. In 1917, in collaboration with Jan Wils, hedesigned a small, pyramidal public monument made up of prisms—atype of abstraction that can be traced back to Josef Hoffmann's dec-orations at the i4th Vienna Secession Exhibition of I9O2.8 By 1922,van Doesburg had begun to 'activate' such purely sculptural forms bymaking them coincide with habitable volumes. In work executed byhis pupils from the Weimar Bauhaus, asymmetrical house plans wereprojected vertically to create interlocking prismatic volumes [75].These researches reached a climax in 1923 when, in collaboration withthe young architect Cornells van Eesteren (1897-1988), he exhibitedthree 'ideal' houses at Leonce Rosenberg's L'Effort Moderne galleryin Paris. Two of these houses—an 'Hotel Particulier' and a 'Maisond'une Artiste'—were variants of a single type of house, which,

THE AVANT-GARDES IN HOLLAND AND RUSSIA 115

because of its wide-ranging influence, deserves to be discussed insome detail [76].

The house consists of an aggregation of interlocking cubic volumeswhich appear to ‘grow’ from a central stem or core in a manner thatrecalls Wright’s Prairie Houses. In its underlying organization thehouse is systematic but in detail it is accidental and variable. This idearecalls the system-plus-variety of Mondrian’s paintings, particularly

76 Theo van Doesburg andCornelis van EesterenAxonometric drawing of HôtelParticulier, 1923A development of vanDoesburg’s earlier studies (see75), the cubic composition isfurther broken up by arbitrarilyplaced rectangles of colour.


77 Theo van DoesburgCounter-construction(Construction de l’Espace-Temps II), 1924This is one of a series of axono-metric drawings giving vanDoesburg’s concept of aNeoplasticist architecture inwhich cubic volumes havebeen reduced to planes,making internal and externalspace continuous. Colour andform are now integrated.

the early figural works which show the transformation of a tree into abinary system of vertical and horizontal dashes. Because of its centrifu-gal, stem-like structure the house has no front or back and seems todefy gravity. It is a self-referential and self-generated object with aform that is not ‘composed’ from the outside but results from an inter-nal principle of growth. The Maison d’une Artiste can be seen as anallegory of nature, in which an initial, unitary principle exfoliates intoan infinity of individuated forms. Primary colours are added to theplanes to differentiate between them. In van Doesburg’s Counter-con-structions of a year later [77], the whole composition is reduced to


these hovering and intersecting coloured planes, allowing space to flowbetween them, in accordance with Futurist principles. Van Doesburgdefined this spatial system as follows:

The subdivision of the functional spaces is strictly determined by rectangularplanes, which possess no individual forms in themselves since, although theyare limited (the one plane by the other), they can be imagined as extended intoinfinity, thereby forming a system of coordinates, the different points of whichwould correspond to an equal number of points in universal, open space.9

In these drawings, axonometry is more than a useful graphic tool. It isthe only method of representation that does not privilege one part ofthe building over another (for example, the façade over the interior). In‘real life’, the only way to recall such a house in its totality would be totrace and retrace its interior spaces in time, as in the case of Loos’sRaumplan houses. Axonometry converts this temporal, semi-con-scious process into an experience that is instantaneous and conscious.For van Doesburg these drawings seem to have symbolized his techno-mystical vision of an architecture identical with the flow of livedexperience. They were idealized representations of the ineffable.Axonometry was also fundamental to van Doesburg’s attempts torepresent four-dimensional space.10

The only building in which van Doesburg’s formal principles wereapplied was the Schroeder House in Utrecht (1924) by Gerrit Rietveld.Externally the house appears as a montage of elementary forms, but itsfragmentation turns out to be a purely surface effect. It is in the interiorthat the house comes to life. Rietveld has reinterpreted van Doesburg’sCounter-constructions in terms of the earlier experiments of Van derLeck and Huszar, and the furniture and equipment of the house istransformed into a vibrant composition of rectilinear forms andprimary colours.

Architecture beyond De StijlBut apart from Rietveld, modern architecture in Holland developed ina different direction from De Stijl, sharing only a certain number ofprinciples such as formal abstraction, immateriality, and the avoidanceof symmetries. The emerging architecture rejected De Stijl’s rigorousreduction and fragmentation and returned to closed forms and frontal-ity. The work of J. J. P. Oud in the 1920s is hardly touched by De Stijl[78], while that of Johannes Brinkman (1902–49) and LeendertCornelis van der Vlugt (1894–1936) shows De Stijl’s influence in arather ad hoc use of interlocking volumes, cantilevered floors, and float-ing vertical planes. By the early 1930s, in such works as the Van NelleFactory (1927–9) and the Sonneveld House (1928) [79], both inRotterdam, De Stijl forms have been totally assimilated into a



79 Johannes Brinkman andLeendert Cornelis van derVlugtSonneveld House, 1928,RotterdamMore Constructivist thanOud’s work, this house, withits generous balconies andglass walls, suggests a worldof heliotropic hygiene.

78 J. J. P. OudSocial Housing, 1924–7,Hook of HollandIn this project Oud’s early DeStijl-inspired work has givenway to a more conventionalarchitecture in which thedifferent rooms are enclosedin single volumes of Platonicpurity. The surfaces give theeffect of thin, white, smoothmembranes.

Constructivist architecture of smooth, machine-like surfaces andextensive glazing. Van Doesburg himself, in the studio house he builtin Paris in 1931, abandoned his earlier Neoplasticism and built a rela-tively simple, functional box.

The tension that developed between De Stijl and the new archi-tecture of the 19205 is revealed by J. J. P. Oud in the book NieuweBouwkunst in Holland en Europe published in 1935:

Remarkable as it may sound the Nieuwe Zakelijheid (New Objectivity)developed in large part from the initial development of the liberal arts—aboveall painting. The origins of its forms lay much more in the aesthetic domainthan in the domain of the objective... Horizontal and vertical intersections ofparts of buildings, suspended floors, corner windows, etc ... were for a timevery much in vogue. Their derivation from painting and sculpture can beeasily demonstrated and they have been continually used with or without anypractical aim.11

Oud s play on the word 'objective' in opposition to 'aesthetic' and hisdisapproval of the 'unpractical' influence of painting and sculpture,clearly indicate the emergence of the new 'functional' parameters.Despite this, the idealism and formalism of van Doesburg's work madeit a catalyst for Modernist architects seeking a new formal language,just as Frank Lloyd Wright's work had been a few years earlier. As aresult of van Doesburg's exhibitions in Weimar and Paris in 1922 and1923 respectively, and his presence 'off-stage' at the Bauhaus in 1921,Neoplasticism exerted a considerable influence on architects like LeCorbusier, Walter Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe at criticalmoments in their careers.

The Russian avant-gardeThe reform movement in the arts followed much the same trajectory inRussia as in Western Europe. A revival of the vernacular arts and craftsinspired, as elsewhere, by William Morris, was initiated at two centres:the estate of the railway magnate Sawa Mamontov near Moscow (inthe 18705) and the estate of Princess Tenisheva at Smolensk (in 1890).Both were closely associated with the Pan-Slav movement. But in 1906this movement itself underwent a transformation with the founding ofthe Organization for Proletarian Culture ('Proletkult'), by AlexandrMalinovsky, self-styled 'Bogdanov' (God-gifted). Bogdanov hadabandoned the Social Democrats for the Bolsheviks in 1903, and hisnew organization initiated a shift from the concept of the folk to that ofthe proletariat, and from handicraft to science and technology.According to Bogdanov the progress of the proletariat towards social-ism would have to take place simultaneously on the political,economic, and cultural planes. These ideas were in fact closer to those

120 THE AVANT-GARDES IN HOLLAND AND RUSSIA

of Saint-Simon than those of Marx, particularly in their call for a new‘religion’ of positivism.

A common pattern in Russia and the West can be found not only inthe change of emphasis from handicraft to machine-work, but also inthe re-emergence of the fine arts as the most important site of experi-ment, linked to the concept of Gestalt. The only substantial differencewas that in Russia the industrial art and fine art movements occurredsimultaneously and became locked in a destructive ideological battle,whereas in the West, though they overlapped, they occurredsequentially.

The diversity of artistic movements that characterized the pre-rev-olutionary avant-gardes in Russia, especially those deriving fromCubism and Futurism, persisted in the post-revolutionary period, pre-senting the historian with a bewildering array of acronyms. Support forthe revolution came from all artistic factions, including the most con-servative, each faction identifying with its aims. For those avant-gardeartists and architects who joined the revolution, the Utopian fantasiesof the period before the First World War seemed about to become ahistorical reality.12 The revolution released an explosion of creativeenergy, in which the paths opened up by the pre-war European avant-gardes were redirected towards the achievement of socialism.

Art institutionsThe Ministry of Enlightenment that was set up after the revolutionunder Commissar Lunacharski, who had been associated withProletkult, was more tolerant of Modernist art than was the partyestablishment as a whole. Under the new ministry, there was a generalreform of the art institutions. The Free Workshops, founded inMoscow in 1918 and renamed the Higher State Artistic and TechnicalWorkshops (Vkhutemas) in 1920, were the successors of the two mainpre-revolutionary Moscow art schools—the Stroganov School ofIndustrial Design and the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, andArchitecture. The fusion of the old school of art with a craft schoolwhich, since 1914, had been training students for industry, created afundamental institutional break with the past—similar to that whichoccurred at the same time in the Weimar Bauhaus—a change epito-mized by the introductory design course or ‘Basic Section’, which wasshared by all departments. The progressives in the school were dividedinto two ideological camps: the Rationalists, led by the architectNikolai Ladovsky (1881–1941) and his United Workshops of the Left(Obmas), and the Constructivists, whose members included the archi-tect Alexander Vesnin (1883–1959) and the artists Varvara Stepanova(1894–1958), Alexander Rodchenko (1891–1956), and Alexei Gan(1889–1940). Another important institution was the Moscow Institute


of Artistic Culture (Inkhuk). It was within Inkhuk that the leftist FirstWorking Group of Constructivists was formed in 1921, and that a sig-nificant debate took place between this group and the Rationalists overthe question of ‘construction’ versus ‘composition’.13

Rationalism versus ConstructivismThough in their forms the Rationalists and Constructivists were oftensimilar, they were ideologically fundamentally opposed to each other.According to the Rationalists, the first task in the renewal of art was itspurification and the discovery of its psychological, formal laws; accord-ing to the Constructivists, art, being an intrinsically social phenomenon,could not be isolated as a purely formal practice.

The Rationalists, starting from the architectural fantasies ofExpressionism, elaborated a system of formal analysis based onGestaltpsychologie [80]. Ladovsky’s course at the Vkhutemas was thecore of the Basic Section until the school was reshaped on more con-servative lines in 1930. In 1923 Ladovsky founded the Association ofNew Architects (ASNOVA) to counteract the growing influence ofthe utilitarian Constructivists within Inkhuk.

Another essentially formalist group must be mentioned here: theSuprematists. Founded by the painter Kasimir Malevich (1878–1935) in1913, this movement had much in common with Dutch Neoplasticism,including its geometrical reductivism and its involvement with Theos-ophy—in the case of Malevich, with the writings of P. D. Ouspensky.14

Unlike Mondrian’s paintings, the Suprematist work of Malevich stillrelied on a figure-ground relationship between represented objects andillusionistic space—even if this space was now featureless and Newton-ian. Also unlike Mondrian, but like van Doesburg, Malevich extendedhis system of ideas to architecture. In a series of prismatic, quasi-archi-tectural sculptures (which he called ‘Arkhitektons’) he sought todemonstrate the timeless laws of architecture underlying the ever-

80 Nikolai LadovskyDesign for a Commune, 1920Such early products ofLadovsky’s Rationalismcontinued the tradition ofDada and Expressionism,which Ladovsky was to supplywith a pseudo-scientificsystem of rules.


81 Kasimir MalevichArkhitekton, 1924Malevich’s Arkhitektonsresemble early De Stijlcompositions in whichornament is non-figural and‘form’ and ‘ornament’ aredifferentiated only by scale.These studies are purelyexperimental and thebuildings have no functionand no internal organization.

changing demands of function [81]. The Darmstadt-trained architectEl Lissitzky (1890–1941) was associated with Malevich at the art schoolin Vitebsk in the early 1920s. The paintings which he grouped underthe name ‘Proun’ (‘Project for the affirmation of the new’) explored thecommon ground between architecture, painting, and sculpture. Manyof them consisted of Arkhitekton-like objects floating in a gravity-freespace, represented in spatially ambiguous axonometric projections.Like van Doesburg, Lissitzky was interested in the possibility of repre-senting four-dimensional space, though he later repudiated this idea.

In contrast to the Rationalists, the Constructivist group held thatwhat constituted the essence of modern art was not the principle ofform, but that of construction. The First Working Group ofConstructivists (founded by Rodchenko, Stepanova, and Gan) repre-sented the group’s most radical wing. The group extended the Futuristconcept of the work of art as a ‘construction’—a real object among realobjects—rather than a ‘composition’ of represented objects, maintain-ing that this necessarily entailed the total elimination of fine art in


82 Vladimir TallinMonument to the ThirdInternational, 1919-20This structure was to be 400metres h igh, stradd I i ng theRiver Neva in St. Petersburg.It was to contain threePlatonic volumes whichrotated on their own axis likeplanets, symbolizing thelegislature, the executive,and information services.

favour of applied or industrial art (or 'production art' as they preferredto call it). They thus converted the Hegelian idea of the sublation of artinto life—already present in pre-First World War avant-garde theory(for example, in that of Mondrian)—from a vague Utopian fantasyinto an actual political project. This programme was set out in AlexeiCan's manifesto, 'Konstruktivizm', of i<)22.15

The chief paradigm for this 'constructed' object was the three-dimensional work of Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953)—particularly his'Counter-reliefs' of 1915, based on Boccioni's 1914 reinterpretation ofPicasso's relief collages, and his maquette for a Monument to theThird International (1919—20), a fusion of Cubo-Expressionist formand pseudo-rational structure [82]. The First Working Group saw suchworks, which were palpably non-utilitarian, as a halfway house to the


83 Alexander RodchenkoDrawing of a chess table,1925This was one of the pieces offurniture for the workers’ clubsection of the USSR Pavilionat the Exposition des ArtsDécoratifs in Paris in 1925.

creation of a hitherto non-existent human type: the ‘artist–construc-tor’, who would unite the skills of the artist and the engineer in oneperson. The scholastic mystifications of much of this debate masked anattempt on the part of the First Working Group to reconcile artisticidealism with Marxist materialism. It is clear from Tatlin’s occasionalwritings that for him it was the mimetic and intuitive understanding ofcomplex mathematical forms that constituted the necessary linkbetween modern art and political revolution, not the literal productionof these forms. The artist’s work was not part of technology, but its‘counterpart’.16

The essential concern of the First Working Group was the artist’srole in an industrial economy—a concern common to all avant-gardegroups since the founding of the Deutscher Werkbund 14 years earlier.The Constructivist theorist Boris Arvatov suggested that the craftshops of the Vkhutemas should be used for ‘the invention of the stan-dard forms of material life in the field of furniture, clothing, and othertypes of production’.17

Artists like Rodchenko, Stepanova, and Lyubov Popova(1889–1924) and their students set about designing the components ofthe new socialist micro-environment [83]. Unlike the furniture pro-duced by the Werkbund-inspired German workshops before the FirstWorld War, these objects never entered the production cycle and theirdesigners did not have the factory experience which might have led to


the evolution of the artist–constructor. However, in remaining the cre-ations of artists they belonged to a new economy of furniture design,depending on new materials such as plywood, bentwood, and tubularsteel, with forms that depended less on traditional craft skills than on acertain kind of inventive wit. This type of utilitarian design was to cul-minate in the designs of the Bauhaus and the furniture of architectslike Mart Stam and Marcel Breuer and would eventually create its ownmarket for ‘designer furniture’. The ‘productivist’ designers weretherefore the unwitting pioneers of a kind of market production whichwas the very opposite of the one they envisaged.

The didactic aim of these designs was also characteristic of thestage-sets designed by Popova, Alexander Vesnin and others, forVsevolod Meyerhold’s propagandist ‘Bio-mechanical Theatre’ [84], inwhich the influence of American industrialism was evident. Thesewere ironic and playful wooden constructions symbolizing the synthe-sis of man and machine and depicting an environment of mechanisticefficiency, in the spirit of the time-and-motion studies of theAmerican engineer F. W. Taylor, but with all the threatening aspectsremoved—‘a new world in which freedom of action could be inte-grated with a planned use of the machine’.18

Constructivist public architectureLenin’s partial reintroduction of free-market capitalism in the NewEconomic Plan (NEP) of 1920 initiated an ambitious programme of

84 Lyubov PopovaSet for Meyerhold’s Bio-mechanical Theatre, 1922This set is a playfulrepresentation of social lifedominated by the machine—a kind of mechanizationwithout tears.


mixed state and privately financed corporate buildings. After 1922numerous competitions were launched. Though few resulted in builtprojects, it was from these competitions that the first permanent, large-scale Constructivist architecture emerged. Its chief characteristics werethe elimination of all ornament and the external expression of thestructural frame, showing the influence of American factory design,and of Walter Gropius's and Ludwig Hilberseimer's separate entriesfor the Chicago Tribune competition of 1922. Although the Proletkultmovement had been suspended in 1923, some of these ponderousmonoliths were enlivened with written signs and mechanical or electri-cal iconography reminiscent of the agitprop kiosks of the early years ofthe revolution and connected with Lenin's Plan of Monumental Pro-paganda of 1918. Vesnin's design for the Moscow headquarters of theLeningrad Pravda (1924) was little more than an oversized and regular-ized kiosk, with its transparent frame and pithead imagery, and itsicons of communication—and it had some of the playfulness of his andPopova's stage-sets [85]. In other cases, such as Vesnin's competitionentry for the Palace of Labour (1922-3) and Ilya Golosov's Workers'Club in Moscow (1926), the building mass is broken up into huge Pla-tonic volumes containing the main programmatic elements.

OSAIn 1925 a new professional group was formed within the Constructivistfaction under the intellectual leadership of Moisei Ginsburg(1892-1946) and the patronage of Alexander Vesnin, called The Unionof Contemporary Architects (OSA). This group was opposed to boththe Rationalists and the First Working Group. It sought to steer theavant-garde away from the Utopian rhetoric of the Proletkult tradi-tion, towards an architecture grounded in scientific method and socialengineering. The group's aims reflected a trend in the Russian avant-garde towards reintegration and synthesis. As Leon Trotsky pointedout in his book Literature and Revolution (1923): If Futurism wasattracted to the chaotic dynamics of the revolution . . . then neo-classicism expressed the need for peace, for stable forms.' This wasequally true of avant-gardes in the West, where—as we shall see—there was a turn to neoclassical calm and precision as a reaction againstthe irrationalism of Expressionism, Futurism, and Dada.

The group published a journal—Contemporary Architecture™—andestablished close ties with avant-garde architects in Western Europe.Ginsburg's book Style and Epoque (1924) was closely modelled on LeCorbusier's Vers une Architecture (though opposed to the idea ofPlatonic constants), and was influenced by Riegl's concept of theKunsfwol/en. OSA posited an architecture of equilibrium in which aes-thetic and technical-material forces would be reconciled. It was

THE AVANT-GARDES IN HOLLAND AND RUSSIA I2/

85 Alexander and ViktorVesninCompetition Design for theMoscow Headquarters of theLeningrad Pravda, 1924This building is a transparentinformation machine inwhich the structure andequipment of the buildingand its media attachmentsbecome the vehicles ofrhetoric and propaganda. Thebuilding has become a sign ofits own function.

fiercely opposed by Ladovsky s ASNOVA for its positivist attitude andits emphasis on technology.20

An earlier manifestation of such internationalist ideas had been theshort-lived journal Veshch (Object) published in Berlin in 1922 by ElLissitzky—spokesman of the Russian avant-garde in Germany—andthe poet Ilya Ehrenburg. The main purpose of this journal, which wasmostly written in Russian, was to acquaint Russian readers with


European developments.21 The journal emphasized the autonomy ofthe aesthetic object: ‘We do not wish to see artistic creation restrictedto useful objects alone. Every organized piece of work—be it a house, apoem or a painting—is a practical object. Basic utilitarianism is farfrom our thoughts.’22 Though ostensibly promoting the latest Con-structivist ideas, the magazine completely ignored the anti-aestheticdoctrine of the First Working Group.

OSA architects concentrated on housing and urbanism as the maininstruments of socialist development. Ginsburg was not an advocate ofcommunal living in its more doctrinaire form, according to which astrict Taylorism should be applied to both work and leisure time andfamily life should be virtually abolished. But despite the importanceGinsburg attached to the opinions of ordinary people, the types ofapartment that he provided in his Narkomfin Housing in Moscow(1928–9) were unpopular because, with their minimal surface area, theydid not allow for the kind of untidy extended family life to whichpeople were accustomed.23 The building reflects the influence of LeCorbusier in its plastic and sectional organization and its combinationof family dwellings and communal facilities [86].24

In the field of urbanism, OSA was caught up in the controversybetween the urbanists and the disurbanists. In this debate, the urban-ists proposed the moderate decentralization of existing cities,preserving them in their substance, and the creation of GardenSuburbs along the lines of Raymond Unwin’s Letchworth and Hamp-stead Garden Suburb in Britain. The disurbanists, on the contrary,called for the progressive demolition of existing cities, except for theirhistorical cores, and the dispersal of the population over the wholecountryside. Ginsburg’s disurbanist views are evident from his compe-tition projects for the Green City (a leisure city to be built nearMoscow), and for the steel city of Magnitogorsk in the Urals, one ofthe new cities planned as part of the first Five Year Plan of 1928. ForMagnitogorsk, Ginsburg designed light, wooden houses on pilotis,suitable for a new kind of nomadic life. These plans were based on thetheories of the sociologist Mikhail Okhitovitch (1896–1937),25 whoproposed the dispersal of industry and a balanced relationship betweenurban and rural life, predicated on the Fordist model of universal auto-mobile ownership.26 In their projects OSA adopted the concept of thelinear city as proposed by the Spanish urbanist Soria y Mata(1844–1920) and his Russian disciple Nikolai Milyutin (1889–1942),who was also the client for Ginsburg’s Narkomfin Housing.

Two visionary architectsAmong the many architects of talent who emerged in the 1920s inRussia, two figures stand out: Konstantin Melnikov (1890–1974) and


86 Moisei GinsburgNarkomfin Housing, 1928–9,MoscowThis was not typical ofRussian mass housingprojects in the 1920s, beingbased on avant-garde andUtopian principles ofcommunal living that werenot generally accepted by theStalinist government.Predicated on aninternationalist view ofmodern architecture, thescheme, at a formal level, ishighly indebted to the work ofLe Corbusier.


87 Konstantin MelnikovThe USSR Pavilion,Exposition des ArtsDécoratifs, 1925, ParisA hybrid structure that wassimultaneously a buildingand a sign, the pavilion ispenetrated diagonally by apublic footpath—an idea thatLe Corbusier was to recallwhen he designed theCarpenter Center at Harvardin the 1960s.

Ivan Leonidov (1902–59). Melnikov had a pre-revolutionary back-ground, whereas Leonidov was formed within the culture of thepost-revolutionary avant-garde. Both, however, were committedequally to socialism and Modernism and sought to give symbolic formto the ideals of the revolution while at the same time exploring archi-tectural ideas for their own sake.

Melnikov was old enough to have been influenced by the Romanticclassicism fashionable when he was a student, after which he cameunder the spell of Expressionism and the Proletkult movement. Hisapproach was in many ways similar to the formalism of Ladovsky; buthe believed Ladovsky’s ideas to be too theoretical and schematic and,with Ilya Golosov, he set up a separate Vkhutemas studio—The NewAcademy—that taught a more individual and spontaneous approachto design. In Melnikov’s projects the forms and spaces were based on aclose study of the programme, which he interpreted in terms of clash-ing and distorted geometries, as in the USSR Pavilion at theExposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925 [87]. His buildings gaverise to associations and ideas beyond architecture and acted as signswithin the existing urban context, as, for example, in the RusakovWorkers’ Club of 1927. Their similarity, in this respect, to the architec-ture parlante of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736–1806), who was popularamong architects in Russia at the time, has often been noted.

Melnikov rejected a purist definition of modern architecture eitherin a formal or a technical sense and his buildings exhibit an eclecticmixture of structural expressionism, formal abstraction, and the alle-gorical use of the human figure. Such ‘kitsch’ elements, as found in the


Commissariat for Heavy Industry of 1934, appear in his work withincreasing frequency in the 1930s and probably reflect the officialdemand for a Social Realist architecture. But since Melnikov usedthem as additional weapons in his armoury of shock tactics—bringingto mind the critic Viktor Shklovsky’s theory of the ‘making strange’ oftraditional practices27—rather than aiming at a reconciliation with tra-dition, his work suffered the same official neglect in the 1930s as that ofthe Constructivists and Rationalists.

Ivan Leonidov, 12 years younger than Melnikov, was a product ofOSA and Ginsburg’s formalist–functionalist wing of Constructivism.In complete contrast to the physicality and drama of Melnikov’s work,Leonidov’s designs seem to exist in a disembodied Neoplatonic worldin which technology has been converted into pure Idea. His reputationrests largely on a series of Utopian projects designed between 1927 and1930. The first and most significant of these was a project for the LeninInstitute of Librarianship [88], which was shown at the firstExhibition of Contemporary Architecture at Moscow in 1927. Thisproject resembles a Suprematist composition. It is dominated by aslender glazed tower and a translucent sphere (the auditorium), thelatter apparently prevented by tension cables from floating off intospace. A second project, for a Palace of Culture (1930), was a transfor-mation of the typical workers’ club into an institution for proletarianeducation on a national scale. Unlike that of the Lenin Monument,which expands dynamically from a central point, the plan of the Palace

88 Ivan LeonidovThe Lenin Institute ofLibrarianship, 1927The metaphor oftransparency andweightlessness is herecombined with Platonicforms, synthesizingSuprematism andConstructivism andsymbolizing a socialism inwhich the ideal and real, thespiritual and the material,have become fused.


of Culture consists of a static rectangular field, subdivided by a squaregrid on which the different Platonic elements—glazed hemispheres,cones, and pyramids—are deployed like pieces on a chessboard. Theseand other projects by Leonidov are remarkable for the apparent effort-lessness with which they summarize and integrate the Suprematist andConstructivist traditions.

The end of the Russian avant-gardeThroughout the 1920s Russian avant-garde architects struggled tohold onto their freedom of action, which usually meant the freedom toput forward ideas that were more radical, both socially and artistically,than those of the Communist Party. But towards the end of the 1920sthe gap between the avant-garde and the political establishmentincreased. As the Stalin government became increasingly authoritarianand culturally conservative, so the architects became more Utopian—as the work of Leonidov demonstrates. The same was true at the levelof urbanism. While the architects of OSA condemned the traditionalcity, the Communist Party saw it as a cultural heritage that was under-stood by the masses and should therefore be preserved, extended, andimproved. The plan for Moscow of 1935 (architect: V. N. Semenov),though based on the city’s unique medieval structure, followed thegeneral principles of such nineteenth and early-twentieth-century cityplans as Haussmann’s Paris, the Ringstrasse in Vienna, and Burnham’sChicago. The official view was summed up in the slogan: ‘The peoplehave a right to columns.’

With Stalin’s first Five Year Plan of 1928, the government embarkedon a ruthless programme of industrial development and agriculturalcollectivization. This programme included the construction of anumber of new industrial cities sited near sources of raw material. Thesolutions that Ginsburg and Milyutin proposed for Magnitogorskwere ignored in favour of conventional centralized cities. Showinglittle faith in Russian architects with their lack of practical experienceand preoccupation with long-term, Utopian ideas, the new city man-agers hired foreign architects with experience in the techniques andmanagement of new settlements. These included the German archi-tect Ernst May and the Swiss Hannes Meyer (who moved to Russia in1930 after losing hope that socialism might be established in westernEurope). Such architects, however, completely misjudging the true sit-uation in Russia, were disappointed when they discovered that theirclients were more interested in their technical skills than theirModernist aesthetics—which in any case could hardly be realizedunder the primitive conditions of the Russian building industry.

Two events symbolize the final death of the avant-garde in SovietRussia. The first was the dissolution in 1932 of all autonomous


89 Boris IofanPalace of the Soviets,1931–3This project represents theStalinist concept of abourgeois architectureinherited by the masses. Itmarked the death knell ofmodern architecture in theUSSR. The project was neverexecuted.


architectural professional groups except the Stalinist-dominated AllUnion Society of Proletarian Architects (VOPRA),28 which resultedin increased government control over the profession. The second eventwas the result of the prestigious Palace of the Soviets competition, heldbetween 1931 and 1933. After a long drawn-out procedure a young ‘cen-trist’ architect—Boris Iofan—was awarded first prize from a list ofentrants that included many of the stars of European Modernism,among them Gropius, Mendelsohn, and Poelzig from Germany,Brasini from Italy, Lamb and Urban from America, and AugustePerret and Le Corbusier from France [89].

Henceforth the state maintained a firm grip on architectural policy.The architects of the avant-garde either vainly attempted to adapttheir style to the approved monumentalism or became bureaucrats (forexample, Ginsburg), working for technical improvement within a cul-tural policy of Socialist Realism that contradicted all that they hadlived for in the 1920s.


7

Return to Order:Le Corbusier andModern Architecturein France 1920-35

After the war of 1914-18 there was a strong reaction in artistic circles inFrance against the anarchy and uncontrolled experimentalism of thepre-war avant-gardes. A 'return to order' was seen to be necessary. Butwhile for some this meant a return to conservative values and a rejectionof modernity, for others it meant embracing the imperatives of moderntechnology. What further complicated the situation was that both cul-tural pessimists like the poet Paul Valery and technological Utopianslike Le Corbusier invoked the spirit of classicism and geometry.

In the aftermath of the war, there was little architectural activity inFrance until 1923, and architects were largely restricted to the design ofprivate dwellings. This chapter will discuss the development of theFrench avant-garde as it emerged from this situation, with LeCorbusier as its most creative and energetic representative.

Le Corbusier before the First World WarCharles Eduard Jeanneret (1887-1965), later known as Le Corbusier,received his training in the school of arts and crafts at La Chaux-de-Fonds in French Switzerland, where he learned a trade—watchengraving—before taking the Cours Superieur with Charles L'Eplat-tenier, who persuaded him to become an architect. He worked for a fewmonths with Auguste Ferret in Paris in 1908 and from 1910 to 1911 hespent several months in Germany preparing a report on Germanapplied art commissioned by UEplattenier.

While in Germany he met Theodor Fischer, Heinrich Tessenow,and Bruno Paul, worked briefly in the office of Peter Behrens, andattended an important Deutscher Werkbund conference sponsored bythe cement industry at which most of the luminaries of the Germanavant-garde were present. He then travelled to the Balkans, Istanbul,and Athens. The journal and letters that Jeanneret wrote during this

J37

Detail of 96 Le Corbusier

Housing, 1928, Pessac

voyage show that he was caught between his love of the ‘feminine’ ver-nacular arts of Eastern Europe and Istanbul, and his admiration for the‘masculine’ classicism of ancient Greece, which he identified with thespirit of modern rationalism. The effect of the Parthenon, combinedwith the teaching of Perret and Behrens, converted him to classicism,and he renounced the medievalizing Jugendstil tradition in which hehad been trained.

In his report on German applied art, which was entitled ‘Etude sur leMouvement de l’Art Décoratif en Allemagne’ (‘Study on the Decora-tive Art Movement in Germany’), Jeanneret eulogized the tradition ofthe French decorative arts, which he saw to be threatened by Germancommercial competition. He was full of praise for the organizationalskill of the Germans, but denigrated their artistic taste. Somewhatinconsistently, however, he admitted his admiration for the newGerman neoclassical movement, claiming that ‘Empire’ was the pro-gressive style of the day, being at once ‘aristocratic, sober, and serious’.

Jeanneret’s early work already shows the desire to reconcile archi-tectural tradition with modern technology that was to characterize hisentire career. While practising in La Chaux-de-Fonds between 1911and 1917 he was engaged in three types of project: research into theapplication of industrial techniques to mass housing within a Sitte-esque Garden Suburb framework; bourgeois interiors in the Empireand Directoire styles; and the design of neoclassical villas. Of the threevillas that he built in the vicinity of La Chaux-de-Fonds—the VillaJeanneret (1912), the Villa Favre-Jacot (1912), and the Villa Schwob(1916)—the first two were strongly influenced by Behrens’s neoclassicalhouses and the third by Perret’s use of the reinforced-concrete frame.During this period, frequent visits to Paris kept him in touch with bothPerret and French decorative art circles, in which his ‘Etude’ hadenjoyed something of a succès d’estime.1

In 1917 Jeanneret moved permanently to Paris, where he was able toset up an office within the business ramifications of an old friend, theengineer and entrepreneur Max Dubois. He also began to paint in oilsunder the guidance of the artist Amédée Ozenfant, whom he met in1918. Calling themselves ‘Purists’, the two immediately collaborated ona book, Après le Cubisme, and with the poet Paul Dermée founded themagazine L’Esprit Nouveau in 1920.

L’Esprit NouveauThe review (from which Dermée was soon ejected on account of hisDada tendencies) was published between October 1920 and January1925 in 28 editions. Its original subtitle, Revue Internationale d’Esthé-tique, was soon changed to Revue Internationale Illustrée de l’ActivitéContemporaine, and the following list of subjects was announced:

138 le corbusier and modern architecture in france 1920‒35

literature, architecture, painting, sculpture, music, pure and appliedscience, experimental aesthetics, the aesthetic of the engineer, urban-ism, philosophy, sociology, economics, politics, modern life, theatre,spectacles, and sports. Most of the articles were written by Ozenfantand Jeanneret themselves under various pseudonyms.2 (At this point,Jeanneret adopted the name of Le Corbusier, though he continued tosign his paintings with his family name until 1928.)

The principal theme of L’Esprit Nouveau, already developed inAprès le Cubisme, was the problematic relation between art and indus-trial society. The review shared with De Stijl the idea that the modernindustrialized world implied a change from individualism to collec-tivism. Both also agreed that art and science were not opposed to eachother, even if they used different means, and that their union wouldresult in a new aesthetic. What differentiated L’Esprit Nouveau fromDe Stijl was the belief that this new aesthetic would be classical inspirit. This idea was underlined by the constant juxtaposition of oldand new: monographs on such French classical ‘masters’ as Poussin andIngres were interleaved with articles by Charles Henry on the scienceof aesthetics;3 the Parthenon was compared to a modern automobile,and so on. The affinity between art and science was seen to be based ontheir common approximation to a condition of stasis, harmony, andinvariability. Science and technology had reached a state of perfectionof which the Greeks had only dreamed. Reason could now createmachines of extreme precision; feeling, allied to reason, could createworks of art of an equally precise plastic beauty: ‘No one today deniesthe aesthetic that emanates from the constructions of modern industry. . . machines display such proportions, plays of volume and materialitythat many are true works of art, because they embody number, which isto say order.’4 There was nothing new in the identification of moderntechnology with classicism—it had been an essential part ofMuthesius’s post-Arts and Crafts aesthetic doctrine (see page 58). ButCubism had opened the way to a more abstract, Platonic idea of classi-cism, and it was in this form that the equation technology–classicismreappeared in L’Esprit Nouveau.

The connection between science and Platonic forms depended on ahighly selective view of modern science. It tended to ignore such nine-teenth-century developments as the life sciences and non-Euclideangeometries with their counterintuitive, often destabilizing, models ofreality. Even more problematic was the fact that in the new world ofobjectivity and collectivism anticipated by L’Esprit Nouveau the posi-tion of the artist remained untouched. De Stijl and the Constructivists,arguing from similar principles to L’Esprit Nouveau, had foreseen atime when the artist would become redundant. But for L’EspritNouveau, the artist played an essential role within a modern societydominated by science and technology—that of making visible the

le corbusier and modern architecture in france 1920‒35 139

unity of the age. Françoise Will-Levaillant’s judgement is difficult todispute: ‘The positivism applied by L’Esprit Nouveau founders on thecontradiction between materialism, to which it leans a priori, and ide-alism, which completely overdetermines all reasoning and choice.’5 Anunresolved dualism was, indeed, at the very core of Le Corbusier’ssystem of ideas. ‘The first goal of architecture’, he wrote, ‘ is to createorganisms that are perfectly viable. The second, where modern archi-tecture really begins, is to move our senses with harmonized forms andour minds by the perception of the mathematical relationships whichunify them.’6 In such statements the connection between technical via-bility and aesthetic form is merely asserted, never argued. Althoughforms became ‘lawful’ only through technique, they were nonethelesssomehow self-validating. This unresolved contradiction betweenmaterialism and idealism was not, however, restricted to the pages ofL’Esprit Nouveau; to one degree or another it characterized theModern Movement of the 1920s as a whole.

The objet-typeIt was in formulating an ideology of modern painting that Ozenfantand Jeanneret developed many of the architectural ideas that laterappeared in L’Esprit Nouveau. In Après le Cubisme (1918) and in theessay ‘Le Purisme’7 an idea that was to play an important part in LeCorbusier’s architectural theory was introduced: that of the objet-type.In these texts, the authors praise Cubism for its abolition of narrative,its simplification of forms, its compression of pictorial depth, and itsmethod of selecting certain objects as emblems of modern life. Butthey condemn it for its ‘decorative’ deformation and fragmentation ofthe object and demand the object’s reinstatement. ‘Of all the recentschools of painting, only Cubism foresaw the advantages of choosingselected objects . . . But by a paradoxical error, instead of sifting out thegeneral laws of these objects, Cubism showed their accidentalaspects.’8 By virtue of these general laws, the object would become anobjet-type, its Platonic forms resulting from a process analogous tonatural selection, becoming ‘banal’, susceptible to infinite duplication,the stuff of everyday life [90].9

The Pavillon de L’Esprit NouveauAlthough he had continued to design neoclassical interiors and furni-ture until his move to Paris in 1917, Jeanneret had been having doubtsabout his use of this style since 1913. In 1914 he wrote a report in whichhe said that, to be in tune with the spirit of the age, designers wouldhave to look at ‘domains abandoned by the artist and left to theirnatural evolution’,10 an idea patently derived from Adolf Loos. (Loos’s


90 Jeanneret/Le CorbusierStill Life, 1919This typical Purist work takesfrom Cubism its flattening ofpictorial depth andoverlapping of planes, but theobject has now beenreinstated in its integrity,acquiring solidity and weight.It has become an objet-type,representing unchangingvalues and resisting therelativistic fragmentation ofreality that had been thehallmark of Cubism.

essays ‘Ornament and Crime’ and ‘Architecture’ had been translatedinto French two years earlier in the anarchist journal Les Cahiersd’Aujourd’hui). The year before, Jeanneret had written to the architectFrancis Jourdain (a follower of Loos) expressing his admiration for aroom Jourdain had exhibited in the Salon d’Automne.11 This roomcontained solid, astylar, rather peasant-like furniture—a far cry fromthe Empire style with its high-bourgeois overtones.12

Le Corbusier resolved these years of doubt in a series of articles inL’Esprit Nouveau, published in 1925 as L’Art Décoratif d’Aujourd’hui,and his new ideas received their first practical demonstration in thePavillon de L’Esprit Nouveau that he and his cousin and new partner,Pierre Jeanneret, built at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in1925. The aim of the exposition, which had been planned before theFirst World War, was to reassert French dominance in the decorativearts, and most of the work was a ‘modernized’ form of the French arti-sanal tradition.13 In his pavilion Le Corbusier designed an interior thatfundamentally challenged this tradition, flying in the face of theFrench art establishment to which he had so eagerly sought an entréeonly a few years before. The pavilion proposed nothing less than theabolition of the decorative arts as such. Far from being a tastefully


designed middle-class home, it was an apartment for a kind of generic‘man without qualities’ living in a post-war economy dominated bymass consumption and mass production.

Arthur Rüegg has called the pavilion a ‘curious mixture of Spartansimplicity and the heterogeneous deployment of objects’.14 The furni-ture was of two kinds: fixed and mobile. The fixed elements—modularstorage units or cassiers standard—were integrated into the architec-tural background, while the free-standing furniture was chosen fromproducts available in the market—for example, leather chairs fromMaples and bentwood dining chairs by Thonet. While the otherexhibitors presented rooms which were ‘artistic wholes’, the Pavillonde L’Esprit Nouveau was a montage of found objets-type lacking anyfixed formal relation to each other [91]. Of the objects that laconicallylittered this carefully arranged space, Le Corbusier later wrote: ‘[They]were instantaneously readable, recognizable, avoiding the dispersal ofattention brought about by particular things not well understood.’15 LeCorbusier’s ideas of fixed and mobile furniture came directly fromLoos. What was quite un-Loosian, however, was the return of theGesamtkunstwerk in a new form—the aesthetically unified expressionof the industrial age.

The aesthetics of the reinforced-concrete frameThe modern architecture of the 1920s was born under the sign of re-inforced concrete, even though much of the work made limited use ofthis material.16 To the ‘naive observer’, ‘concrete architecture’ meantarchitecture that looked monolithic and cubic. It was from Auguste

91 Le Corbusier and PierreJeanneretPavillon de L’Esprit Nouveauat the Exposition des ArtsDécoratifs, 1925, ParisThe pavilion is the adaptationof the typical Parisian artist’sstudio to a family dwelling.The furnishing is a montageof anonymous, off-the-pegobjets-type but at the sametime a carefully contrived, ifaustere, Gesamtkunstwerk.


92 Auguste PerretMusée des Travaux Publics,1936–46, ParisPerret reinterpreted theFrench neoclassical–rationalist masonry traditionin terms of reinforcedconcrete. In this case there isboth a detached peristyle anda structural wall withrevetment. The structure,whether free-standing orembedded in the wall, isperfectly legible.

Perret that Le Corbusier learned to regard reinforced concrete as themodern structural material par excellence, but his view of it becamevery different from that of his teacher. Perret adhered to the aca-demically enshrined principles of French structural rationalism,according to which the structure of a building should be legible on thefaçade. For Perret, the advent of reinforced concrete modified but didnot invalidate this tradition; he looked on concrete as a new kind ofstone [92].

Unlike Perret, Le Corbusier saw reinforced concrete as a meanstowards the industrialization of the building process.17 His firstembodiment of this idea was the Dom-ino frame (1914), designed withthe help of Max Dubois, in which the columns and the floorplateconstituted a prefabricated system independent of walls and partitions[93]. In the earliest projects for which this system was proposed, theexternal walls, though structurally redundant, still looked as if theywere of masonry construction.18 But starting with the Citrohan House


93LeCorbusierDom-ino Frame, 1914In this building the concreteframe is conceived as beingindependent of the spatialplanning, and as a meanstowards the industrializationof the build ing process, notas a linguistic element as itwas for his teacher Perret. Itslogical independence freesartistic form from itstraditional dependence ontectonics. The building isnow presented as anindustrial product.

project of 1920, such features disappear and the building becomes anabstract prism. In all Le Corbusier s mature work, even where theexternal wall is an infill between columns, the columns are suppressed,and the entire surface is covered with a uniform coat of white orcoloured plaster. In becoming homogenized and dematerialized thewalls of the building lose, as it were, their tectonic memory, just as inCubism the painting, becoming fragmented, loses its narrativememory. As in Cubist painting, architecture no longer reiterateshistory: it becomes reflexive.

Although the structure of the proposed Citrohan House issuppressed, its presence is indicated by a number of devices. In thissubtle revealing of a hidden frame structure, the work of Le Corbusierdiffers from that of his Modernist colleagues in France such as RobertMallet-Stevens (1886-1945), Andre Lur$at (1894-1970), and GabrielGuevrekian (1900-70), who like him exhibited at the Salons d'Au-tomne of 1922 and 1924, in which the new 'cubic' style became knownto the public. If we compare, for example, Le Corbusier's CitrohanHouse of 1925-7 [94] with Mallet-Stevens's 'Project for a Villa' of 1924[95] the difference is particularly striking.

The Citrohan House is a single cubic volume. Its window openingsextend to the corner reinforced-concrete column, leaving only the

144 LE CORBUSIER AND MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE 1920-35

94 Le CorbusierCitrohan House, 1925–7,Weissenhofsiedlung,StuttgartThis was the last in the seriesof Citrohan-type housesbegun in 1920. The house isa pure prism, an expressionof volume rather than mass,the walls reading as thinmembranes, the frameinvisible though palpable.


95 Rob Mallet-StevensProject for a Villa, 1924In contrast to the CitrohanHouse, the building appearsto have thick walls,suggesting masonryconstruction. It is apyramidal composition ofcubes owing much to vanDoesburg.

thickness of this column separating the window opening from thecircumambient air, destroying the building’s apparent mass. This effectis accentuated by the bringing forward of the windows almost to thewall planes so that the walls appear as a thin diaphragm. Furthermore,because the entire weight of the building is carried on widely spacedcolumns, the window openings can be of any size or shape and theirrelationship to the wall is no longer that of figure to ground. In con-trast, Mallet-Stevens’s villa consists of a pyramidal aggregation ofcubes, their thick walls pierced with windows surrounded by substan-tial areas of wall. Whatever the structure was intended to be, it givesthe impression of having been carved out of a solid block. Indeed,Mallet-Stevens himself, in an article of 1922, claimed that, in modernarchitecture, the concepts of the architect and the sculptor are identi-cal: ‘It is the house itself that becomes the decorative motif, like abeautiful piece of sculpture . . . thousands of forms are possible andunexpected silhouettes are created.’19 The villa, in fact, seems to bederived from van Doesburg’s studies in Weimar in 1922, which wereequally ambiguous structurally. In both cases an irregular set of roomsdances round a vertical stair shaft, generating an asymmetrical, pyra-midal composition of cubes. Ornament has been replaced bypicturesque sculptural form.

The Citrohan House was the antithesis of this type of fragmentedobject which exhibited on its exterior the volumes out of which it wasmade. Such a building was ‘a hirsute agglomeration of cubes; anuncontrolled phenomenon’.20 ‘We have got used’, Le Corbusier wroteto a client, ‘to compositions which are so complicated that they give theimpression of men carrying their intestines outside their bodies. Weclaim that these should remain inside . . . and that the outside of thehouse should appear in all its limpidity.’21 These remarks reveal LeCorbusier’s conception of the relation between modern technologyand the laws of architecture. Technology, continuously changing,makes the building functionally efficient, satisfying, and giving rise toneeds. But like the machinery of a car, the technology of the houseshould be invisible. Both house and car are objets-type—complex setsof functions sheathed in Platonic membranes.

Although Le Corbusier rejected van Doesburg’s literal fragmenta-tion of the envelope of the building, his interiors show the influence ofvan Doesburg’s composition by planes,22 and he sometimes adopts theDutch architect’s external use of polychromy [96].

The ‘Five Points of a New Architecture’The Citrohan House referred to above was one of a pair of houses LeCorbusier built for the Deutscher Werkbund-sponsored exhibition atthe Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart of 1927. It was in the context of

96 Le CorbusierHousing, 1928, PessacThe use of colour probablyindicates the influence of vanDoesburg, but Le Corbusierapplies a single colour towhole façades or buildings,resisting van Doesburg’sisolation of the plane, just ashe had rejected Cubistfragmentation. In the 1920s,unlike van Doesburg, LeCorbusier preferred earth andpastel colours but in the1950s—for example at theUnité d’Habitation atMarseilles—he was to adoptthe De Stijl palette of primarycolours.


this building that he published his ‘Five Points for a New Archi-tecture’, in which he prescribed the rules of a new architectural system.These were: pilotis; the roof garden; the free plan; the horizontalwindow; and the free façade. Each point, inverting a specific elementof the academic tradition, is presented as a freedom achieved by meansof modern technology, a decoding of the conventions of a supposedly‘natural’ architecture. But this declaration of freedom can also be readas a series of displacements within a broader set of architectural rules. Itdoes not accept the absolute licence of Expressionism or the mysticalUtopia of van Doesburg. It is the purification of the architectural tradi-tion, not its abandonment.

Implicit in the Five Points is an opposition between the rectangularenclosure and the free plan, each of which presupposes the other [97].Le Corbusier underlined this opposition when, describing the VillaStein, he wrote: ‘On the exterior an architectural will is affirmed, in theinterior all the functional needs are satisfied.’23 But he went beyond thefunctionalism implied by this statement, exploiting the aesthetic pos-sibilities inherent in the free plan. The interior becomes a field ofplastic improvisation triggered by the contingencies of domestic lifeand giving rise to a new kind of promenade architecturale. Le Corbusiercompares this ‘disorderly order’ to the chaos of a dining table after aconvivial dinner, which becomes an allegory of the occasion of which itis the trace.24 According to Francesco Passanti, Le Corbusier owed thisconcept of ‘life art’ to the poet Pierre Reverdy.25

The tension between the free interior and the ‘limpid’ exterior in LeCorbusier’s work of the 1920s reaches a climax with the Villa Savoye at

97 Le CorbusierFour House Types, 1929Le Corbusier’s brillianttypological analysis of hisown houses clearly revealshis concept of the dialecticalrelationship between aPlatonic exterior and afunctional interior—twoincommensurate forms of‘order’ existing side by side.


Poissy (1929-31). The house is raised on pilotis and appears as a purewhite prism hovering above the convex surface of the field in which it issited [98]. The arriving car drives under the house and a ramp takes thevisitor from the entrance lobby to the main floor—a walled enclosureoccupied partly by the accommodation and partly by a terrace garden.Within the geometrical purity of the enclosing cube, the interior is freeand asymmetrical, obeying its own dynamic logic [99]. Yet the wallseparating the two worlds of inside and outside is only a thin mem-brane, cut by a continuous horizontal window. The inhabitant havingfirst been separated from the Virgilian landscape is re-presented withits framed image. The cube is first established and then burst open[100].

Writing of Le Corbusier s houses of the 19208, Sigfried Giedionsaid: 'Like no one before him, Corbusier had the ability to makeresonate the ferro-concrete skeleton that had been presented byscience... the solid volume is opened up whenever possible by cubes ofair, strip windows, immediate transitions to the sky . . . Corbusier shouses are neither spatial nor plastic... air flows through them/26

UrbanismAs we have seen, Le Corbusier's earliest urban projects in Chaux-de-Fonds were related to the Garden City movement. But in 1920, heturned his attention to the problem of the modern metropolis, address-ing issues of circulation and hygiene with which the urbanists in Parishad been concerned for some time.27 The first such project—the VilleContemporaine, shown at the Salon d'Automne of 1922—was aschematic proposal for a city of 3 million people on an ideal site [101].The project is based on the belief that the metropolis is valuable apriori. Its efficiency as a node of culture depends on its historical asso-ciation with a particular location. But to be preserved it has first to bedestroyed. To counter the city s increasing congestion and the conse-quent flight of its inhabitants to the suburbs, it will be necessary both toincrease its density and to decrease the area covered by buildings. UsingAmerican skyscraper technology, the project proposes widely spacedoffice towers 200 metres high, and continuous residential superblocksof 12 storeys, the rest of the space being turned into parkland traversedby a rectilinear network of high-speed roads. Modern technologymakes it possible to combine the advantages of the Garden City withthose of the traditional city. Instead of the population moving to thesuburbs, the suburbs move into the city.

The linear superblocks in the Ville Contemporaine are arranged ina pattern of 'setbacks'—'a redents. This idea had two sources: theboulevards a redans proposed by Eugene Henard in I9O3,28 and LeCorbusier's own studies of Dom-ino housing around I9i4-29 In the

LE CORBUSIER AND MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE 1920-35 149

98 Le Corbusier (above)Villa Savoye, 1929–31,PoissyThough ‘classically’proportioned, the VillaSavoye seems to havealighted from outer space, solightly does it rest on theground. This was one of LeCorbusier’s most surrealbuildings and the occasion ofhis most lyrical use of pilotis.


100 Le Corbusier (below)Villa Savoye, 1929–31, Poissy, plans of ground, first, androof floorsThe ramp is a vestige of an earlier sketch in which the car isshown driving up to the first floor.

99 Le Corbusier (right, top)Villa Savoye, 1929–31,PoissyThe main rooms are on thefirst floor, together with a roofterrace. This is a variation onthe medieval theme of thehortus conclusus, a closedgarden of contemplation setapart from the surroundinglandscape, which is,however, visible through acontinuous horizontalwindow in the terrace wall.

Ville Contemporaine, as in these studies, the housing blocks do notalign with the road system but are arranged in counterpoint to it. Inthe later Ville Radieuse (1933) the blocks are raised on pilotis, andpedestrian movement at ground level is unobstructed. The urbanspace becomes isotropic; there are no ‘fronts’ and ‘backs’ and thespatial distinction between public and private is abolished. AlthoughLe Corbusier modified these first urban models in various ways, theirbasic form remained unaltered, even after he had developed com-pletely different systems of urbanism for Rio de Janeiro, Algiers, andChandigarh (see page 210).

In the Ville Contemporaine and the Ville Radieuse, two absolutevalues are juxtaposed: nature and technology. Work and domestic lifetake place in high-rise structures; cultivation of the spirit and the bodytakes place in parkland. As a result of this disjunction, the element ofchance is eliminated from urban experience. The social problems con-nected with this separation of living from the spontaneous and randomaspects of city life have become increasingly obvious in the interveningyears. Despite its faults, however, the Corbusian city drew attention tothe division of labour inherent in industrialized society by creating anurban image in which technology and nature become separated. Wemay quarrel with Le Corbusier’s Cartesian interpretation of this sepa-ration, but hardly with its underlying truth.

101 Le CorbusierVille Contemporaine, 1922In this drawing the shiningand unforgiving technology ofthe office towers hardlyimpinges on nature or on theuntroubled lives of the hautebourgeoisie sipping theircoffee on a roof terrace.


102 Le CorbusierCite de Refuge, 1929-33,ParisIn a brilliant solution to adifficult site, the building isapproached through a set ofinitiatory volumes, seen asfigures against the wall planeof the main dormitory block.

Public buildingsIn the late 19208 and early 19308 Le Corbusier designed a number ofmajor public buildings, including two unbuilt competition designs—the League of Nations Building for Geneva (1927) and the Palace of theSoviets for Moscow (1931)—and two completed buildings—theCentrosoyus building in Moscow (1929-35) and the Cite de Refuge inParis (1929-33) [102]. In these buildings he adopted a strategy very dif-ferent from that of his houses. Instead of containing the functionalirregularities within a Platonic exterior, the building is broken up intoits component parts. These consist mainly of linear bars (containingrepeating modules such as offices) and centralized volumes (contain-ing spaces of public assembly). These elements are then freelyrecomposed in such a way that they tend to fly apart and multiply

LE CORBUSIER AND MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE 1920-35 153

[103], forming small cities on their own. In the Corbusian ideal city,public buildings lead a rather shadowy and insecure existence.30

Regional SyndicalismIn the late 1920s Le Corbusier became a militant member of the Neo-Syndicalist group led by Hubert Lagardelle (1874–1958) and PhilippeLamour (1903–1992). The group was anti-liberal and anti-Marxist andideologically aligned with contemporary Fascist movements in Franceand Italy. Le Corbusier became an editor and major contributor to thegroup’s journal Plans and its successor Prélude. Influenced by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Georges Sorel, the group called for the abolitionof parliamentary democracy, and for the creation of a government oftechnical elites, on the Saint-Simonian principle of the ‘administrationof things, not the government of people’, dedicated to a plannedeconomy. It believed that the alienation of modern social life could bealleviated not by socialism, with its concept of abstract man, but by areturn to l ’homme réel and to the spirit of community characteristic ofpre-industrial societies.31 This anti-Enlightenment, anti-materialistposition was the equivalent of the Volkisch movement in Germany, andhad the same tolerance for a technological Modernism on conditionthat it was not dominated by finance capital.32

Le Corbusier’s new journalistic activities coincided with a revival ofhis earlier interest in vernacular architecture—an interest which hadbeen submerged but never destroyed by his concern for new systems ofarchitectural production. In his book Une Maison, un Palais he wrote inlyrical if somewhat patronizing terms of the fishermen’s cottages at LePiquey near La Rochelle where he spent his summer vacations

103 Le CorbusierCité de Refuge, 1929–33,ParisProposed extension.The building becomes asmall city, its partsapparently absorbed into itsurban context.


104 Le CorbusierVilla de Mandrot, 1931,PradetThis was the first in a series ofrural houses using traditionalmaterials and marking aphase in Le Corbusier’scareer in which he began tostress vernacular buildingtraditions.

between 1928 and 1932.33 In building their huts, he says, ‘the fishermenare very attentive to what they do. When deciding where to placesomething, they turn round and round like a cat deciding where to liedown; they weigh up the situation, unconsciously calculating the pointof equilibrium . . . intuition proposes, reason reasons.’34

Between 1930 and 1935, vernacular forms make their appearance inseveral small rural houses by Le Corbusier and Jeanneret in which thepitched roof and the masonry wall, outlawed in the 1920s, reappear[104]. Yet these houses are no mere return to vernacular models;natural materials are reinterpreted in terms of Modernist aesthetics.Vernacular references are less evident in the Radiant Farm and aVillage Coopératif (1934–38) [105]—two linked (unrealized) projectsin which modern building technologies and Modernist aesthetics wereapplied to agriculture.35 These projects originated in an issue of Préludedevoted to regional reform, edited by a radical peasant-farmer, NorbertBézard, who commissioned Le Corbusier to design a model farmingcommunity. The grass-covered Catalan vaults of these projects haverural overtones, but with their montage à sec (dry) construction andtheir clean, white, geometrical forms, they were clearly intended tomake the greatest possible contrast with existing rural conditions. Therather surprising six-storey block of apartments in the cooperativevillage was justified by Le Corbusier in semiological rather than func-tional or social terms—it was, he said, ‘a new architectural sign


standing above the meadows, the stubble fields, and the pastures’36—an emblem of the new modern spirit.

If we compare Le Corbusier’s Neo-Syndicalist ideas with those hehad expressed in L’Esprit Nouveau 15 years earlier, we find a consider-able shift of emphasis. The main problem for L’Esprit Nouveau was theconflict between eternal cultural values and modern technology, whichit tried to resolve by conflating technology with Platonic ‘invariables’.In the late 1920s Le Corbusier modified this static model, acknowledg-ing the existence of uncertainty and change. Elements that had beenrecessive in the L’Esprit Nouveau philosophy—disorder, organic forms,immediate experience, intuition—come to the forefront. If geometryand balance are still seen as the ultimate measures of value, they arenow thought to be as much the result of instinct as of an abstract ratio-nality. The task of modern architecture is seen as the fusion of universaltechnology with age-old wisdom:

Architecture is the result of the state of the spirit of the epoch. We are in theface of an international event . . . techniques, problems posed, like scientificmeans, are universal. However, the regions are distinct from each other,because climatic conditions, racial currents . . . always guide the solutiontowards forms which they condition.37

Le Corbusier’s earliest contact with regional ideas had been in 1910,under the influence of Alexandre Cingria-Vaneyre, an advocate of aclassical, Mediterraneanized Suisse-Romande. With the Neo-

105 Le CorbusierRadiant Village Coopératif,1934–8This project was linked to LeCorbusier’s involvement withthe Regional Syndicalists andtheir journal Prélude, andwas conceived as part of theirnational plan for agrarianreform.


Syndicalists he now encountered similar ideas on a global scale. TheNeo-Syndicalists believed that Europe should be divided into three‘natural’ zones: the Germans in the north-west, the Slavs in the east,and the Latin races in the south (including North Africa). Under thesway of such racial theories—which were quite common in Europe inthe 1930s—Le Corbusier began to think in terms of a global modernarchitecture in which technology would come into direct confronta-tion with the natural geographical forces of different macro-regions.His extensive travels in South America and Algeria in the 1930s gener-ated a series of urban projects in the developing world, culminating inhis work in Chandigarh, India, in the 1950s. These and other later pro-jects will be discussed in chapter 11.


8

106 Mies van der Rohe

German Pavilion,International Exposition,1929, Barcelona(demolished, rebuilt 1986)View from the pavilion intothe closed court The interioris characterized by strongcontrasts of light and shadewith a rich variety ofsurfaces—marbles, clear andtranslucent glass, stainlesssteel (originally chromium-plated), red curtains, and blackcarpet.

Weimar Germany:the Dialectic of theModern 1920-33In Germany, as in France, there was a 'return to order* after the FirstWorld War, though it was delayed by political and economic crisis.When it came it rejected not just Expressionism but the values of theWilhelmine culture that Expressionism had attacked. Whereas inFrance the return to order, even its progressive form, could be seen asre-affirming an established and triumphant national tradition, inGermany, defeated in the war, it implied a radical break with thenational past and a search for alternative principles.

The architecture that began to emerge in Germany around 1922reflected a dramatic change of orientation in the visual arts as a whole.The movement known as 'Neue Sachlichkeit' ('New Objectivity' ormore accurately4 Fact-like-ness'),1 was indicative of a new realism. Theterm was first used in 1923 in the context of painting by museum direc-tor Gustav Hartlaub, who defined it as 'realism with a socialist flavour'.The movement was sometimes interpreted as a form of cynicism—areaction to the horrors of a disastrous war—and sometimes as a 'magicrealism'. The art critic Franz Roh expressed the situation thus: 'TheExpressionist generation had rightly opposed Impressionism with theman of ethical principles . . . The most recent artist corresponds to athird type, one who shares Expressionisms far-sighted aims, but ismore down-to-earth and knows how to enjoy the present.'2

In architecture, the change was registered by Adolf Behne. As chiefspokesman of Expressionism and a key figure in the Arbeitsrat furKunst (AFK), Behne had held strongly anti-technological views, as isclear from his essay 'Die Wiederkehr der Kunst' ('The Restoration ofArt') of 1919. But by 1922 he had completely reversed his position. Inhis essay of that year, 'Kunst, Handwerk, Technik' (Art, Craft, andTechnology')3 he renounced his earlier views, claiming that the divi-sion of labour inaugurated by the machine was an improvement on theold 'organic' relation between the individual craftsman and hisproducts, since it brought into play a 'higher awareness'. After a trans-itional period, the worker would come to understand his role withinthe totality of industrialized society. Zivilisation and Gesellschaft werenow embraced at the expense of the old paradigms of Kultur andGemeinschaft. Behne's new concept of the relation between the worker

159

and his work was similar to the view that Gropius had alreadyexpressed in his 'Kunst und Industriebau' speech of 1911 in an earlier'return to order' (see page 68).

The Bauhaus: from Expressionism to Neue SachlichkeitWhen Gropius was appointed to succeed Henry van de Velde as direc-tor of the Academy of Fine Art at Weimar in 1919, he was given thetask of creating a new School of Architecture and Applied Art whichwould unify the Hochshule fur Bildende Kunst with the recently dis-banded Kunstgewerbeshule. The integration of fine arts with crafts wasstandard policy in German art schools at the time.4 But as we have seenGropius had grander ambitions: he wanted the academy (which he now)renamed the Bauhaus) to become the spearhead of the AFKs pro-gramme for the transformation of German artistic culture under thewing of architecture (see page 96). This programme was predicated onthe belief that artistic culture was threatened by the materialism ofindustrial capitalism and could only be saved by a spiritual revolution.In the 'Bauhaus Manifesto* of 1919, Gropius wrote, in Expressionistvein, 'Let us conceive a new building of the future . . . architecture,painting, and sculpture rising to Heaven out of the hands of a millioncraftsmen, the crystal symbol of the new in the future' [107].5

Between 1919 and 1923, however, the Bauhaus abandoned itsExpressionist ideology and began to absorb the ideas of NeueSachlichkeit, De Stijl, and UEsprit Nouveau. The initial impulse forthis change came in 1921 when van Doesburg set himself up in Weimarin opposition to the Bauhaus, giving a series of lectures attended bymany Bauhaus students in which he advocated an approach to designdiametrically opposed to the ideology of craftsmanship and artistic'intuition' that still dominated the Bauhaus curriculum.

A second influx of ideas came from Russian Constructivism.During the early 19205 there was considerable cultural interchangebetween Germany and Soviet Russia. In 1922 the first Exhibition ofSoviet Art was shown at the Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung. Thiscoincided with the publication of El Lissitzky's journal Veshch (see page128). In 1921 the Constructivist-based Congress of InternationalProgressive Artists was held in Diisseldorf, and this was followed by aConstructivist Congress in Weimar in 1922, organized by a splintergroup from the Diisseldorf congress, including van Doesburg, theHungarian artist and photographer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, ElLissitzky, and the Dada artists Hans Richter, Hans Arp, and TristanTzara. These events greatly affected the climate of opinion within theBauhaus.

The first institutional change within the school took place in 1922,when the Swiss painter Johannes Itten was replaced by Moholy-Nagy

160 WEIMAR GERMANY: THE DIALECTIC OF THE MODERN 1920-33

107 Lyonel FeiningerCover of the ‘BauhausManifesto’, 1919In this Expressionistrepresentation of theCathedral of Socialism thefuture is projected in terms ofthe pre-industrial past.

as head of the Vorkurs (Preliminary Course). In contrast to Itten, whosemystical approach to art teaching was based on psychological–formalist principles,6 Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946) introduced into theschool an ‘objective’ Constructivist approach involving the manipula-tion of industrial materials such as steel and glass and mechanicaltechniques of assembly. The difference between Itten’s and Moholy-Nagy’s ideas roughly corresponded to that between the Rationalistsand the Constructivists within the Russian avant-garde (see page 122).The change in the Vorkurs was later described rather laconically byMoholy-Nagy’s fellow teacher Josef Albers: ‘[The course] aimed at thedevelopment of a new, contemporary visual idiom . . . and this—overtime—led from an emphasis on personal expression . . . to a morerational, economic, and structural use of material itself . . . in pictorialterms, from collage to montage’.7 As Reyner Banham pointed out,however, the move from subjectivity to machine rationalism did noteliminate the concept of ideal beauty. Moholy-Nagy, no less than LeCorbusier, believed in the connection between machines and Platonicforms.8

The real turning point came in 1923, when the Bauhaus organizedits first exhibition. In line with the new technical emphasis, the stated

weimar germany: the dialectic of the modern 1920‒33 161

theme of the exhibition was to be Art and Technology: a New Unity'.But Gropius also had a more purely architectural agenda—one whichwould present, as he said, 'international architecture from a completelypre-determined point of view, namely the development of modernarchitecture in the dynamic functional direction, without ornament ormouldings/9 A model house—the 'Haus am Horn'—was built, con-taining furniture designed and produced by the Bauhaus workshops asprototypes for mass production. Elementarist wooden furniture, basedon that of Gerrit Rietveld, was designed by Bauhaus student MarcelBreuer (1902-81), who three years later—after he had joined theBauhaus staff—was to design the tubular-steel, Constructivist* Wassily' chair.

In 1925, the Thuringian State government withdrew its financialsupport and the Bauhaus moved to the town of Dessau, where themunicipality funded a new school building, incorporating an existingtrade school and new staff houses. With the move, several of the exist-ing staff resigned and their places were taken by a new generation ofBauhaus-trained teachers—including Marcel Breuer, Josef Albers,and Herbert Bayer—who had acquired from the Bauhaus a new aes-thetic theory and a new set of technical skills. That same year, Gropiuswrote, 'The Bauhaus workshops are essentially laboratories in whichprototypes of products suitable for mass production and typical of ourtime are carefully developed and improved/ triumphantly celebratingthe union of art and technology. Writing in the Bauhaus journal in1926, however, Bauhaus teacher Georg Muche struck a discordantnote, advancing the rather Loosian view that the laws of fine art andthose of technical design were fundamentally different. While Mucheclearly underestimated the importance of the new relation between artand technology, his critique does suggest that the change to moremachine-oriented design might be better explained as a 'paradigmshift' on the part of the artist, than as the fusion of artist and technicianthat Gropius implied. The designs that became commercially success-ful after the move to Dessau were in fact the result of the collaborationbetween industry and Bauhaus artists such as Marianne Brandt andChristian Dell [108].10

The school building and the masters' houses at Dessau were the firstmajor structures realized by Gropius in the new 'dynamic functional'manner. The body of the school building was broken down into pro-grammatic elements and reassembled to form an open, centrifugalform that was possibly inspired by Mies van der Rohe s project for aConcrete Country House [117]. The school building [109, 110], withits bridge to the new trade school, and the masters' houses with theirinterlocking prisms, show the influence of both Constructivism andDe Stijl. The pure cubes which form these buildings reflect the work ofOud in Holland and Le Corbusier and Lur$at in France. The school

162 WEIMAR GERMANY: THE DIALECTIC OF THE MODERN 1920-33

108 Wilhelm Wagenfeld andMarianne BrandtCeiling Lights, 1927These fittings were amongthe most commerciallysuccessful Bauhaus designsof the Dessau period,resulting from a collaborationbetween artists and industry.

building also has certain features from Gropius’s earlier work, such asthe projection of the glazing slightly in front of the wall plane, so that itis not interrupted by the columns.

Social housingWith the Dawes Plan of 1924 and the consequent influx of Americancapital, the building industry in Germany began to recover. Cities werenow able to take advantage of 1919 legislation giving them limitedcontrol over the use of land, and to activate programmes to alleviate the


housing shortage caused by several years without building activity andconsiderable wartime migration to the cities.11

During the second half of the nineteenth century there had beenincreasing concern among reformist groups in all the industrialcountries over the lack of affordable housing for unskilled and semi-skilled workers. By 1914 the housing reform movement in Germanyhad gathered considerable momentum and non-profit buildingsocieties were widespread—even if the results so far were meagre. In1924, therefore, when the Social Democratic Party municipal auth-orities put in place their housing programmes, they were able to benefitfrom institutions and powers already in place.12 A remarkable charac-teristic of this housing campaign was the extent to which it was

109 and 110 Walter GropiusBauhaus Building, 1926,DessauThe swastika form of the planexemplifies theFuturist–Constructivistcentrifugal free-standingbuilding with the differentprogrammatic elementsarticulated, as opposed to thetraditional courtyard type.Compare with publicbuildings by Le Corbusier,Hannes Meyer, and theVesnin brothers for differentinterpretations of the sameidea.

164 weimar germany: the dialectic of the modern 1920‒33

dominated by the avant-garde, though a precedent for this had beenset in Holland, where both Berlage and Oud had also received officialcity appointments.13

After the First World War Germany was rich in technically compe-tent, ideologically progressive architects, and many of these were put incharge of city housing programmes between 1924 and 1931, includingOtto Haesler (1880-1962) in Celle, Max Berg (1870-1947) in Breslau,Fritz Schumacher (1869-1947) in Hamburg, Ernst May (1886-1970) inFrankfurt-am-Main, and Martin Wagner (1885-1957) in Berlin.

Like the Garden Suburbs before the First World War, the post-warSiedlungen consisted of enclaves of new housing on the outskirts ofexisting cities. But they differed from the Garden Suburb model inseveral respects. They were, for example, built to higher densities andconsisted mostly (though not exclusively) of apartment blocks of up tofive storeys (considered the maximum walk-up height). These weregenerally laid out on the Zeilenbau principle of parallel blocks alignednorth-south at right angles to the access street (a system that hadalready been proposed before the war).14 This gave to each apartmentthe fresh air and sunlight that had been conspicuously absent in thelate-nineteenth-century tenements—the so-called Mietkasernen('rental barracks')—with their dark courtyards. At the aesthetic andsymbolic level, they followed the rules of Neue Sachlichkeit—that is tosay they were stripped of all ornament and had flat roofs. Ornamentwas replaced by the fairly extensive use of coloured surfaces. Some ofthe larger Siedlungen included public buildings such as schools andhospitals, and the housing was generally provided with public facilitiessuch as central heating and laundries.

The design of the individual apartments reflected the influence ofnew concepts of domestic management, strongly promoted by thewomen's movement, which drew their inspiration largely fromAmerica where, as we have seen, they had been discussed since the18908 (see page 50). Erna Meyers highly successful DerNeueHaushalt(The New Household, 1926) and Crete Schutte-Lihotzky's FrankfurtKitchen design were based on Christine Frederick's ScientificManagement in the Home of 1915. The new minimum dwelling affectedthe middle classes even more than the workers.15

Except for the use of reinforced concrete for floors, roofs, and occa-sionally columns, and for some experiments in prefabricated concretewall panels, the materials and techniques used in the Siedlungen weretraditional. Walls were of plastered brick or clinker block. Thewindows had wooden frames and tended to be small. These smallwindows, large, smooth wall surfaces, and heavy attic floors often gavean almost cosy, vernacular effect to the blocks.16

The ruthlessly 'rational', Zei/enbau-type layouts, like that ofGropius and Haesler for Dammerstock Estate at Karlsruhe (1927—8)

WEIMAR GERMANY: THE DIALECTIC OF THE MODERN 1920-33 165

[111], were not always popular. The critic Adolf Behne, although hesupported the Neue Sachlichkeit movement in principle, attacked thisproject, accusing it of being both formalist and scientistic, and of treat-ing the inhabitant as an ‘abstract dweller’. In this approach, he said, thearchitect becomes more hygienic than the hygienist: ‘Medical researchhas shown that the inhabitants of those houses that are considered tobe unhygienic are healthier than the inhabitants of hygienic houses.’17

Other projects were given some degree of formal differentiation. Atthe company town of Siemensstadt in Berlin, where Walter Gropius,Fred Forbat (1897–1972), Otto Bartning, and Hugo Häring (1882–1958)designed buildings within an overall plan by Hans Scharoun(1893–1972), a number of short parallel blocks were subordinated to andunified by a long, curved building following the road alignment [112].At the Britz-Siedlung (1928) in Berlin, Bruno Taut, working for thebuilding society GEHAG, focused his layout on a large, horseshoe-shaped open space and used every opportunity to introduce varietyinto the project by means of colour, contrasting materials, curvedstreets, and broken lines of housing. In his Berlin housing projectsTaut, despite his new Sachlich credentials, carried on a sort of privateguerrilla war against the more Sachlich Modernists.18

The most comprehensive housing programme was that atFrankfurt-am-Main, where Ernst May, appointed city architect in1925, set about implementing an unbuilt ‘satellite’ project that he had

111 Otto Haesler and WalterGropiusDammerstock Estate,1927–8, Karlsruhe, planOne of the most rigorousexamples of the Zeilenbautype of layout, in which all theblocks have the sameorientation, in mechanicalrepetition.


112 Walter GropiusApartment Block, 1928,Siemensstadt, BerlinThis is one of the shortparallel blocks atSiemensstadt. Note theuse of brick to give theimpression of longer spans inwindows and balconies.These kinds of trompe-l’oeileffects are typical of Gropius,a man of compromise, bothaesthetic and political.

designed for Breslau in 1921. The whole design, which was developedbetween 1925 and 1931, consisted of a number of small Siedlungen, mostof which were set slightly apart from the city in unspoilt meadowland.Of all the Siedlungen, those of Frankfurt, with their semi-rural settingand high proportion of single family houses, were perhaps the closestto the Garden Suburb ideals of Raymond Unwin, for whom May hadworked before the war. Most of the ‘satellites’ were designed in May’soffice, but some were farmed out, including that of Hellerhof by the


Dutch architect Mart Stam (1899–1986). The public response to the‘New Frankfurt’ was generally favourable.

The Weimar Republic’s social housing programme seems in retro-spect to have been an extraordinary act of collective architectural will.Yet it was barely able to scratch the surface of the housing problem.In spite of government subsidies and the use of non-profit buildingsocieties, the price of the dwellings remained too high for unskilledworkers. Nonetheless, the programme’s achievements, both on a prac-tical and on a symbolic level, were considerable. In a series of projectsthat acted as architectural manifestos, it created the image of anorderly, healthy, and harmonious society, contrasting with the squalidtenements of the nineteenth century.

Despite the predominance of Neue Sachlichkeit architects in theWeimar housing programme, there were many architects in Germanywho believed that domestic architecture should follow vernacularmodels [113]. Many of these had belonged to the Arts and Crafts and

113Housing, 1925–7, DüsseldorfThe Heimat style becameincreasingly associated withNational Socialism and theextreme Right, in oppositionto the Modernism favoured bythe Social Democratic Party.


Garden City movements and had been ‘avant-garde’ in their day. Themost vocal and influential of these was Paul Schultze-Naumburg(1869–1949), who carried on a relentless campaign against NeueSachlichkeit in support of the Heimatschutz (Protection of the Home)movement. Between 1926 and 1928 Schultze-Naumburg published aseries of books that became progressively more nationalist and racist intone.19 These helped to polarize the public debate between Modernistsand traditionalists, identifying the latter with the ideas of NationalSocialism, although their opinions were more or less those of conserv-ative people everywhere (in other words, the majority).

Functionalists versus rationalistsOne of the main conflicts within the German avant-garde of the 1920swas that between the ‘functionalists’ and ‘rationalists’. In one of thefirst attempts to define the Neue Sachlichkeit movement, Der ModerneZweckbau (The Modern Functional Building, written in 1923 but notpublished until 1926), Adolf Behne drew attention to this conflict andanalysed the ideological differences which underlay it. According toBehne, the functionalists (whom he might more accurately have called‘organicists’) created unique, non-repeatable buildings whose formswere shaped round their functions, whereas the rationalists looked fortypical and repeatable forms that were able to fulfil generalized needs.Behne equated the functionalists with the ex-Expressionist architects,who, under the guise of being true to the laws of nature, in fact createdsingular buildings that were unable to become parts of a greater whole:‘As the functionalist looks for the greatest possible adaptation to themost specialized purpose, the rationalist looks for the most appropriatesolution for many cases.’20 The functionalists are individualists, whilethe rationalists accept a responsibility to society.

Theo van Doesburg, in one of his articles in the journal HetBouwbedrijf,21 made the same distinction as Behne, though he putgreater stress than Behne on problems of aesthetics. For van Doesburgthe functionalists, in their search for a close fit between forms andfunctions, ignored the psychological need for ‘spare space’ in buildings,and he cited Henri Poincaré’s concept of ‘tactile space’ to support thisidea.22

Looking at the problem today, it seems clear that these critics wereputting forward two ‘ideal types’, and that actual buildings seldomconformed completely to one or the other: the Neue Sachlichkeit ten-dency was, by definition, concerned with generic rather than individualproblems; and even the most extreme Expressionists had, by 1924,accepted rationalist principles. However, although the work of theLuckhardt brothers, Hans (1890–1954) and Wassili (1889–1972), and ofErich Mendelsohn (1887–1953) after the Einstein Tower of 1920–4, can


easily be assimilated to Neue Sachlichkeit, that of Häring andScharoun is often characterized by curvilinear, functionally ‘expressive’forms which reject the rectilinearity typical of the movement as a whole[114, 115].

Mies van der Rohe and the spiritualization of techniqueAlthough no one architect in the Germany of the 1920s dominated theprofessional scene as Le Corbusier did in France, the reputation ofMies van der Rohe (1886–1969) in the sphere of aesthetics seems tohave been equal to that of Gropius in the sphere of organization. Aman of few, if weighty, words, Mies was not only an astute self-publicist, but an architect with the ability to reduce every problem to akind of essential simplicity—a simplicity that continues to give rise toconflicting interpretations of his work to this day.

In Mies’s work, two opposing tendencies struggled for dominance.

114 and 115 Hans ScharounSchminke House, 1933,LöbauAn example of‘functionalism’ or‘organicism’ in which a fluidspatial configurationresponds to both internal andexternal pressures. In thiscase the balconies arerotated relative to the mainbody of the house,responding to the view acrossthe garden.


One could be described as the enclosure of function in a generalizedcubic container not committed to any particular set of concrete func-tions—a tendency partly derived from his early allegiance toneoclassicism. The other was the articulation of the building inresponse to the fluidity of life. This second tendency, however, seldominvolved him in figural shaping, as it did the Expressionists, nor did italign Mies with what Behne called ‘functionalism’. Following a


Constructivist or Neoplasticist logic, neutral forms could createsystems flexible enough to respond to any imaginable life situation,every building taking on a unique configuration while being madefrom similar elements. It was such a process that Mies adopted whenhe abandoned the house as a single pavilion and broke it up into itsbasic elements. I will discuss here the houses Mies produced betweenthe wars, in which he attempted to reconcile these conflicting ideas—neoclassical objectification on the one hand and Neoplasticistfragmentation on the other.23

Mies’s architectural formation was remarkably similar to LeCorbusier’s, though their response to the conditions of modernity thatthey both recognized could hardly have been more different. Both hadbeen trained in craft schools and had climbed into the professionallyand socially higher sphere of architecture and the ‘fine arts’; bothchanged their names;24 both worked their way through a formativeperiod of neoclassicism (in the design of furniture as well as that ofhouses) based on the example of the same two masters—Bruno Pauland Peter Behrens; in both cases, their Modernist work followed onwithout interruption from their neoclassical work and was stronglyinfluenced by it. But, whereas Le Corbusier designed only two neo-classical houses before moving on to other explorations (though hecontinued to design Empire style interiors for several years), Mies’s‘Biedermeier’ period lasted from 1907 to 1926 and was the basis of asuccessful architectural practice. He was over 40 when he completedhis first Modernist–Constructivist building, the Wolf House in Guben(1925–7).

All Mies’s neoclassical houses are symmetrical two-storey prisms,sometimes with minor appendages. These houses, especially the RiehlHouse (1907) [116], borrowed heavily from the illustrations of eigh-teenth-century vernacular–classical houses in Paul Mebes’s book Um1800 of 1905. The Riehl House differs from the others in its siting. LikeLe Corbusier’s Maison Jeanneret and Favre-Jacot at La Chaux-de-Fonds (and like Giulio Romano’s Villa Lante on the Giannicolo inRome which might have influenced both Le Corbusier and Mies) it issited on a steep incline. One of its gable ends is frontalized by means ofa loggia and plunges unexpectedly down to connect with a long retain-ing wall. This might be called the building-as-dam type, and is avariant of the Stadtkrone, tending to be shown towering above theviewer, in the Wagnerschule manner. It is also found in other projectsby Mies: the competition scheme for the Bismarck Monument of 1910(which probably had its origin in Schinkel’s Schloss Orianda project of1838), the Wolf House, the Tugendhat House (1928–30), and theMountain House project of 1934.

When he resumed his practice in Berlin after the First World War,Mies met the experimental filmmaker and Dadaist Hans Richter and

117 Mies van der RohePlans, (a) Concrete CountryHouse, 1923, (b) LessingHouse, 1923, and (c) BrickCountry House, 1924Unlike Mies’s earlyneoclassical houses, thesefirst Constructivist houseshave one storey and becomeprogressively morefragmented. In the BrickCountry House, closedvolumes have disappearedand the space is defined onlyby free-standing planes, as invan Doesburg’s Counter-constructions.


116 Mies van der RoheRiehl House, 1907, Berlin(Neubabelsberg, Potsdam)The interest of this buildinglies chiefly in the frontalizedgable end, which seems togrow out of the retaining wall.Several of Mies’s projectshave this intimate, dam-likerelation to sloping sites.

joined his circle of artists and writers, which included van Doesburgand El Lissitzky.25 Mies’s conversion from mimetic eclecticism toConstructivist abstraction dates from this first encounter with theBerlin avant-garde. In 1922, Richter, El Lissitzky, and the artist andfilmmaker Werner Gräf founded the journal G: Material zurElementaren Gestaltung (G: From Material to Form). It was here thatMies published his earliest Constructivist projects together with brief


polemical articles in which he took a strongly anti-formalist position:‘We know no forms, only building problems. Form is not the goal butthe result of our work.’26

These early Constructivist projects in which Mies explored some ofthe fundamental problems posed by new techniques and materials,comprise two Scheerbartian glass skyscrapers (1921–2), an eight-storeyoffice block in reinforced concrete (1922), and two single-storeyhouses—a Concrete Country House (1923) and a Brick CountryHouse (1924). The houses in this group, together with the little-knownLessing House project (1923), summarize the dialectic in Mies’s work[117]. In the Concrete Country House the cube is dissolved into aspread-eagled, swastika-like form; in the Lessing House the cube isbroken up into smaller cubes, interlocking with each other in echelon;in the Brick Country House the cubes are replaced by a system ofplanes. This progressive fragmentation and articulation, in which theexternal form of the house reflects its internal subdivision, betrays theindirect influence of the English free-style house, Berlage, andWright, but its immediate ancestor is De Stijl.27

The Wolf House [118], and the Lange and Esters houses, both builtin Krefeld in 1927, explore the Lessing type. Built of the local buildingmaterial, brick, they are broken up into interlocking cubes to formroughly pyramidal compositions of two and three storeys. The princi-pal rooms on the ground floor are opened up to each other to form

118 Mies van der RoheWolf House, 1925–7, Guben(demolished)This photograph showsMies’s attachment toconventional ideas ofpicturesque composition inhis drawings. He seldom usedaxonometric projection, andmade much use of diagonalperspective views, presentingbuildings from the mostfavourable angle.


119 Mies van derRohe

Tugendhat House, 1928-30,Brno, Czech RepublicThe building is wedged intothe sloping site like the RiehlHouse. The living room withits continuous floor-to-ceilingwindow is one floor belowstreet level.

sequences in echelon. The bedroom floors are set back to provide roofterraces.

The Tugendhat House at Brno in the Czech Republic marks a newstage in Mies's development [119, 120, 121]. No longer in brick, it isrendered and painted white. Its organization results from a site condi-tion that recalls that of the Riehl House. Built against a steep slope, thehouse consists of a monolithic cubic mass with a set-back, fragmentedupper floor, through which one enters from the street to descend to theliving room on the floor below. The living room is an enormous spacedivided by fixed but free-standing screens. The monolithic volume ofthe house is wedged solidly into the sloping ground. The south andeast sides of the living area are fully glazed with floor-to-ceiling,

120 Mies van derRohe

Tugendhat House, 1928-30,Brno, Czech RepublicInterior view, showing thepanorama of the garden tothe south and west throughretractable glass walls.Sumptuous materials—polished marble screens andchrome columns—take theplace of conventionaldetailing and ornament.


mechanically retractable, plate-glass windows, opening to a panoramicview. Thus, the inflected space, which in the Brick Country Houseextends out to infinity, is here contained within a cubic volume. But atthe same time, this volume is made totally transparent. Classicalclosure and the infinite sublime are combined by means of moderntechnology.

Contemporaneous with the Tugendhat House is the GermanPavilion for the Barcelona International Exposition of 1929, known asthe Barcelona Pavilion [106 (see page 158), 122]. Here, the enclosingcube is dispensed with and the entire space is defined in terms of inde-pendent horizontal and vertical planes. But instead of disappearinginto infinity, the wall planes turn back on themselves to form opencourts which clamp the building to the two ends of the site. Sitedastride one of the exhibition routes, the pavilion was not so much adam as a filter.

In both the Tugendhat House and the Barcelona Pavilion, incontrast to the Brick Country House, the roof is supported by an inde-

121 Mies van der RoheUpper and lower-floor plans,Tugendhat House, 1928–30,Brno, Czech RepublicThe entrance floor has twobedroom pavilions set backfrom the face of the mainvolume as viewed from thegarden. A third pavilion onthe right creates a semi-enclosed courtyard.


122 Mies van der Rohe

Site and floor plan, GermanPavilion, InternationalExposition, 1929, Barcelona(demolished, rebuilt 1986)Wall planes at right angles tothe flow of movement actedas a filter for visitors passingthrough the building fromone part of the exposition toanother.

pendent grid of columns. At first sight this looks like an oddly belateddiscovery of the principle of the free plan. But at second glance thecolumns seem too slender to carry the roof without some help from thewall planes (their slenderness is enhanced by their reflective finish).Rather than columns they seem more like signs marking the modulargrid.

Between 1931 and 1935, Mies designed a series of houses whichadapted the Barcelona Pavilion plan-type to domestic use. The firstwas a model house in the 1931 Berlin Building Exposition. This wasfollowed by a series of unbuilt projects, including the Ulrich LangeHouse (1935), for single-storey houses within closed courts. Thesedesigns become more and more introverted. In one sense they can beseen to be following the same Mediterranean prototypes as otheravant-garde architects of the 19305—in this respect Le Corbusier'senclosed garden at Poissy makes an interesting comparison. But theyalso suggest that Mies (or his clients) might have been withdrawinginto a private world, unconsciously reacting to a threatening politicalsituation. In spite of this tendency towards enclosure, however, themore elaborate projects of this period, such as the Hubbe House, wereleft partially open to give framed views of nature [123, 124]. Indeed,the natural landscape is omnipresent in Mies's sketches at this time,suggesting that the main function of the house had become that offraming a view in which nature is idealized. Mies later acknowledgedthis distancing effect:' When you see nature through the glass walls ofthe Farnsworth House it gets a deeper meaning than from outside.More is asked from nature because it becomes part of a greater whole/28


123 Mies van der RoheHubbe House, 1935,Magdeburg, perspective ofliving room and terrace withElbe RiverThe external wall has becometransparent, allowing anunobstructed view of nature.

124 Mies van der RoheHubbe House, 1935,Magdeburg, plan withfurniture placementNeoclassical enclosure hasmigrated from the houseproper to the garden court,but here the court is prisedopen to allow for entry and aframed view of nature. Theplan shows a fusion of theLessing and De Stijl types.


According to a common misconception, Mies’s minimalist distilla-tion of architecture was the result of a deep engagement with the craftof building. Certainly, Mies was obsessed by certain craft-like aspectsof architecture, but he was more concerned with idealizing and medi-ating techniques of graphic representation than with construction. Asis clear from his writings, Mies realized that the traditional relation-ship between the craftsman and his product had been destroyed by themachine. His criteria were ideal and visual, not constructional—noteven ‘visual–constructional’. It is true that unlike, for instance, LeCorbusier, Mies displays the materiality of his building elements, buthe assembles these elements like montages; their connections are nevervisible. Even more than that of the other Modernists, Mies’s work runscounter to the ‘tectonic’ tradition.

Recently, in a justified reaction against the myth of Mies-the-constructor, critics have invented a Post-Modern Mies—one whoprimarily operated with surfaces and effects, within the endless play ofthe signifier.29 But this interpretation errs in the opposite direction. Itignores Mies’s fear of post-Nietzschean chaos and it also assumes thatan aesthetic of materials and their ephemeral appearance (as signifiedby the German word Schein) is incompatible with a belief in founda-tional values. Mies’s conception of architecture followed the dialecticaltendency of German Idealism to think in terms of opposites.According to the Neoplatonic aesthetics that influenced his thinking,the transcendental world is reflected in the world of the senses (Mieswas fond of quoting St Augustine’s dictum: ‘Beauty is the radiance oftruth’). When modified by the concept of the ‘will of the epoch’, thisbecame the basis of his belief that the spiritual could only becomeactive in the world in a historicized form, that is to say in the form oftechnology.30 Such problems of surface and depth, the contingent andthe ideal, also lay behind the anti-formalism of Mies’s articles in G in1923. These did not represent a ‘materialist’ phase (later to be abjured)as most commentators claim; they reflected a topos of Modernist aes-thetics derived from German Romanticism, according to which theforms of art should, like those of nature, reveal an inner essence and notbe imposed from the outside.31

To enquire into Mies’s philosophical background is, of course, in noway to suggest that his architecture was an ‘expression’ of philosophicalideas. For Mies, it was precisely the auto-referentiality of the work ofarchitecture that gave it access to the world of spiritual meaning. Mies’sModernism and his idealism were perfectly compatible.

Materialism versus idealism: the Swiss contributionThe Swiss journal ABC represents the extreme ‘materialist’ wing of theNew Objectivity movement within the German speaking world.32


Published in nine issues between 1924 and 1928, the journal was editedby an international group of architects, including the Swiss HansSchmidt (1893–1972) and Emil Roth (1893–1980), the Dutch MartStam, and the Russian El Lissitzky (who ceased to be an editor whenhe was expelled from Switzerland in 1925). The Swiss architect HannesMeyer (1889–1954) was also closely connected with ABC. The originalimpetus for the group’s formation came from Swiss–Dutch connec-tions that had been forged by two architects of the older generation,Karl Moser (1860–1936) and H. P. Berlage, and the interest on the partof young Swiss architects in Berlage’s plan for South Amsterdam.

The group was strongly opposed to De Stijl’s idealist and aestheticapproach. As Jacques Gubler has observed: ‘Where De Stijl postulatedthe absolute of art and elementary form, ABC postulated the absoluteof technique and material.’33 ABC believed that only a ‘dictatorship’ ofscience and technology would be able to satisfy the collective needs ofsociety.34 There are obvious connections between this philosophy andthat of the Constructivist First Working Group in Soviet Russia (seepages 123‒5).

In their projects, Mart Stam and Hans Schmidt were primarilyinterested in systems of prefabrication, particularly in reinforced con-crete. Despite their anti-art stand, their main concern was to developan architectural ‘language’ which reflected serial production. Theirdiscourse was not essentially different from that of Neue Sachlichkeitas a whole but it claimed to be more scientifically rigorous. Stam’sresearches into prefabrication included ‘reinterpretations’ of Mies vander Rohe’s glass skyscraper of 1921–2 and Concrete Office Building of1922 [125].35 Stam adapted Mies’s ideas to the needs of mass produc-tion; for example the curvilinear plan of the glass skyscraper wastransformed into a circle, and the two-way structure of the office build-ing into a linear, additive structure.

Hannes Meyer’s theoretical position was also close to that of theConstructivist Left. He claimed that architecture was merely oneinstance of the technical–productive process: ‘The depreciation of all

125 Mart StamReinterpretation of Mies vander Rohe’s Concrete OfficeBuilding of 1922In this illustration in thejournal ABC (1925), Mies’sstructure has been‘improved’ to make it suitablefor prefabrication. Form isseen to follow process.


art works is an indisputable fact, and there is no doubt that theirreplacement with a new exact science is merely a matter of time . . . artis becoming invention and controlled reality.’36 His early work—par-ticularly the Freidorf-Siedlung near Basel (1919–21)—was in theneoclassical style typical of the Swiss Garden City movement, inwhich he played an active part. After his rather late conversion toModernism in 1924, the projects he undertook with Hans Wittwervaried between a rhetorical, mechanistic Constructivism (the projectsfor the League of Nations competition of 1927 and the Petersschule inBasel of 1926) and a dry rationalism (the Trade Union League Schoolin Bernau, Germany of 1928–30). When he succeeded Gropius asdirector of the Bauhaus in 1928, Meyer introduced a rigorously ‘pro-ductivist’ and anti-aesthetic regime which reversed Gropius’sassiduously apolitical policy.


9

From Rationalismto Revisionism:

Architecture in Italy1920-65

The strong connection between the architectural avant-garde andFascism in Italy during the 'heroic' period of modern architecture hasalways been an embarrassment to architectural historians. Yet in theirsupport for Fascism Italian modern architects reflected an anti-liberal,anti-democratic attitude that was far from uncommon within theEuropean avant-gardes from the 19105 to the 19308. The search for a'third way' between Marxism and capitalism that would combine pre-capitalist communitarian values with modernization becametranslated into political reality only in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.The Germans made a distinction between 'modernization' and'Modernism', embracing the first but restricting the second to specificbuilding types such as factories. The Italian Fascist Party was split: theright wing was opposed to Modernism; the left wing supported it. TheModernist architects, for their part, sympathized wholeheartedly witha movement that shared their dislike of nineteenth-century liberalismand their desire simultaneously to modernize and return to ancientroots.

126 Carlo Scarpa

GipsotecaCanoviana,1956-7, Possagno, TrevisoScarpa's museums areamong the most interestingexamples of Italian post-warmuseum design, in whichModernist abstraction formsthe context for displays ofhumanist art.

The NovecentoTwo progressive movements in architecture made their appearance inItaly after the First World War. Both rejected what they saw as theindividualism and nihilism of the Futurists and promised a 'return toorder'. This found expression in all the arts, for example in the ValoriPlastici movement in painting, which took its point of departure fromthe metaphysical realism of Giorgio de Chirico.

The first of the movements was the 'Novecento', which emergedtowards the end of the war. This was a 'moderate' avant-garde that hadmuch in common with the German Biedermeier movement of a fewyears earlier. It promoted an architecture which, though 'modern',would restore its links with an anonymous classical tradition. Theleading architect of this movement was Giovanni Muzio (1893-1983),

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whose Ca' Brutta apartment building in Milan (1919-22) was typical ofa style that emphasized the surface of the building and took pleasure inmannerist, ironic deformations of conventional classical motifs.

RationalismThe second progressive post-war movement was born in 1926 with theformation of Gruppo 7. The members of this group, which includedAdalberto Libera (1903-63), Luigi Figini (1903-84), and Gino Pollini(1903-91), were all students at the Milan Polytechnic and belonged to anew, post-war generation. Their aims were summarized thus in thejournal Rassegna Italiana: 'The hallmark of the previous avant-gardewas . . . a vain aesthetic fury . . . that of today's youth is a desire forlucidity and wisdom... we do not intend to break with tradition... thenew architecture should be the result of a close association betweenlogic and rationality/1 The rationalists' programme, with its fusion offunctionalism and the classical spirit, was largely borrowed from LeCorbusier s articles in L'Esprit Nouveau. The intellectual leaders of themovement were the art critic Edoardo Persico (1900-36) and the archi-tect Giuseppe Pagano (1896-1945), respectively the director and chiefeditor of the journal Casabella from the late 19205.

During the first half of the 19308 the political fortunes of the ratio-nalists were in the ascendant following their successful participation ina number of public projects. The most important of these were:

• the University of Rome (1932-5)—although the traditionalistMarcello Piacentini (1881-1960) was the architect in charge, severalindividual buildings were assigned to rationalists, including thePhysics Building by Pagano.

• work for the Ministry of Communications, including a new railwaystation in Florence by the Gruppo Toscana.

• the new towns built on the reclaimed Pontine marshes south ofRome, the most celebrated of which was Sabaudia, designed by agroup led by Luigi Piccinato (1899—1983), in which equal attentionwas paid to socio-economic and symbolic-aesthetic issues.

In the north (beyond the immediate influence of Rome), rationalismwas also relatively successful despite the indifference and sometimesthe hostility of the Fascist Party. Important rationalist projects, bothprivate and public, were carried out by, among others, Figini andPollini (for example Figini's own house in Milan of 1934-5), and byGiuseppe Terragni (1904-43) whose Casa del Fascio in Como (1932-6)was a fusion of classical monumentalism and Modernist abstraction[127]. Terragni was the most gifted of the Gruppo 7 architects. Hiswork is notable for, among other things, its complex interplay of

184 ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 1920-65

127 Giuseppe TerragniCasa del Fascio, 1932–6,ComoFor Terragni the openstructural frame signifiedFascist transparency andpublic accessibility. But thebuilding also has a dream-like, timeless qualityreminiscent of the paintingsof Giorgio de Chirico.

surface and structural frame, as in the east façade of the Casa del Fascioand in the Casa Giuliani-Figerio in Como (1939). Although Terragnijustified the Casa del Fascio in terms of ‘the Mussolinian concept thatFascism is a glass house into which all can enter’,2 the classicizingaspects of the building prompted Pagano to condemn it as formalistand as representing an ‘aristocratic sensibility’.3 The conflict betweenPagano and Terragni was not political (they were both ardent Fascists);it was the same conflict that had divided Hannes Meyer and LeCorbusier—that between a moralistic rigour on the one hand and anidealist aestheticism on the other.

In 1934 Mussolini himself belatedly announced his support of therationalists.4 But with the increase of patriotic sentiment at the out-break of the Abyssinian War, the party veered to the right, and towardsthe end of the 1930s the traditionalists, under the leadership ofPiacentini, became the dominant architectural faction. In the E42Exposition near Rome of 1942 (now called EUR) most of the rational-ists abandoned their Modernist position in favour of a stripped,monumental classicism.

Post-war reconstructionUnder Fascism the development of an international Modernism hadbeen relatively free of political interference, despite antagonistic ele-ments within the Fascist Party. Therefore there was considerablecontinuity between pre-war and post-war architecture in Italy. Butparadoxically there were also strong revisionist pressures. Since mostModernist architects in Italy had been keen supporters of Fascism, theprofession was driven, after the defeat of Fascism, to search for a newarchitectural identity. Architects became engaged in a succession ofideological debates which opened up the Modernist tradition to new

architecture in italy 1920‒65 185

interpretations.5 In these debates Milan and Rome represented oppo-site poles. The Milanese architects continued the pre-war rationalistprogramme established by Persico and Pagano, associating rationalismwith leftist politics.6

In Rome, where rationalism had never been a strong force, a cri-tique of the rationalists was mounted by the architect-critic BrunoZevi (1918—2000). In two books, Towards an Organic Architecture (1945)and A History of Modern Architecture (1950), he called for a morehumane architecture that would follow the examples of Frank LloydWright and Alvar Aalto. Zevi's Association for Organic Architectureannounced the promotion of'an architecture for the human being . ..shaped to the human scale and satisfying the spiritual and psycholog-ical needs of man in society . . . organic architecture is therefore theantithesis of a monumental architecture used to create official myths'.7

In its attack on the architecture of the Fascist era, Zevi s critique wasaimed at both neoclassicism and rationalism. But he shared most of theideals of the rationalists, particularly that of creating a genuinelymodern architecture in which social progress and technical innovationwould go hand in hand. These hopes were shattered when, in 1948, atthe beginning of the Cold War, the centre-right Christian Democratswere returned to power. Far from inaugurating a programme of socialreform and technical modernization, the government concentrated onshoring up the tangle of existing interest groups within the construc-tion industry. In 1949 it created INA Casa (the Institute of HomeInsurance), with the aim of making 'provisions for increasing workeremployment, facilitating the construction of workers' housing'.8 Thepriority given to reducing unemployment had the effect of inhibitingtechnical advance in an industry still largely at a pre-industrial level.9

NeorealismThe artisanal state of the construction industry was also behind the'Neorealist' movement, which was closely involved with INA Casa.The movement was initiated by the architects Mario Ridolfi (1904-84)and Ludovico Quaroni (1911-87) in a series of housing projects. Theseincluded the Tiburtino Housing Estate (1944-54) by Ridolfi andQuaroni [128], and housing in the Viale Etiopia (1950-4) by Ridolfi,both in Rome. The projects made use of a constructional vocabularybased on Ridolfi s \yoo\aManualedeirarchitetto (The Architect's Manual) >published by the National Research Council in 1946, which aimed tocreate a vernacular Esperanto that would be understood by ordinarypeople.10 Ridolfi and Quaroni's projects were influenced by Swedishhousing and had much in common with the populist aims ofBackstrom and Reinius. Another Neorealist project—the unbuiltcommunity centre for the Falchera housing estate in Turin (1950) by

l86 ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 1920-65

128 Mario Ridolfi andLudovico QuaroniTiburtino Housing Estate1944-54, RomeThe self-consciouslyvernacular quality in thisNeorealist project owedmuch to the'NewEmpiricism' of the Swedisharchitects Backstrom andReinius.

Giovanni Astengo (1915-90)—seems to have been directly influencedby the Arsta Social Centre in Stockholm by the Ahlsen brothers (seepage 197).

ContextualismIf the Neorealist movement marks the first appearance of what VittorioGregotti has called 'the striving for reality' in Italian post-war architec-ture, the same striving can be found in Ernesto Rogers's concept of anarchitecture that responds to its urban context. In an article inCasabella of 1955 entitled Tre-existing Conditions and Issues ofContemporary Building Practice'11 Rogers (1909-69) advocated anarchitecture which, while remaining explicitly modern in itstechniques, would respond formally to its historical and spatialcontext—an architecture based on an existential rather than anidealized reality.

ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 1920-65 187

129 Ernesto Rogers,Lodovico Belgiojoso, andEnrico Peressutti (BPR)Off ice Bui Id ing, 1958-69,Piazza Meda, MilanAn explicitly moderntechnology is combined withclassical references, so thatthe build ing accommodatesitself in scale to its urbancontext—a deliberatecritique of the Modernisttabula rasa.

This concept had already been broached in practical design before itwas theorized by Rogers. Two projects may be singled out as represent-ing contrasting solutions to the same problem. In the INA Casa officesin Parma (1950) by Franco Albini (1905-77) a visible concrete frameprovides a grid through which a play of vertically stressed solids andvoids is threaded. The complexities of daily life and the patterns of theexisting street fa$ade are suggested without disturbing the underlyingrationality of the idealized grid. In contrast to this, Rogers and hispartners Lodovico Belgiojoso (1909-2004) and Enrico Peressutti (1908-75)(BPR), in their office building in the Piazza Meda in Milan (1958-69),deform the rational structural grid to create a classical hierarchy of dif-ferent floors [129]. In the first example two 'orders' are dialecticallysuperimposed; in the second a hybrid is created, not attempting toimitate its context but creating its analogue.

A more literal interpretation of 'context' can be seen in the work ofthe Roman architect and theorist Saverio Muratori (1910-73). ForMuratori, in his headquarters for the Christian Democratic Party inthe EUR quarter of Rome (1955), 'response to context' meant commu-nicating with the public by way of familiar signs and reassertingtradition. Muratori, like Ridolfi and Quaroni, was influenced bySwedish architecture, but in its earlier, neoclassical phase. A moresuperficial nostalgia for the past was characteristic of the 'Neoliberty'movement which emerged in the mid-1950s, as exemplified by the villaon Via XX Settembre in Milan (1954-5) by Luigi Caccia-Dominioni(b. 1913). Neoliberty was concerned neither with the immediatecontext nor with an eternal classicism; it believed that Jugendstil wasstill capable of representing a culturally unfulfilled urban bourgeoisie.

Many Italian architects rejected contextualism—including Gian-carlo de Carlo (b. 1919) who, after a brief flirtation with Neorealism inhis early housing project at Matera in the 19505, reverted to a rational-

l88 ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 1920-65

130 Giovanni Michelucci

Church of S.Giovanni, 1962,Autostrada del Sole, FlorenceThe building shows theinfluence of both GermanExpression ism and LeCorbusier's chapel atRonchamp.

ist-Brutalist style in his student housing at the University of Urbino(1963-6). But the main criticism came from abroad, particularly fromthe newly formed 'Team X*, at the 1959 CIAM congress in Otterlo (seepage 218). The chief objects of this attack were BPR's Torre Velasca inMilan (1954-8), the Zattere apartments in Venice (1954-8) by IgnazioGardella (1905-99), and de Carlo's Matera scheme.

The dialectic of rationalism and organicismFor a number of architects, breaking with the straitjacket of the ration-alist tradition did not entail any stylistic negotiations with history. LikeZevi, these architects accepted the abstract language of Modernismbut sought to extend it to freer realms of metaphor and expression. Thework of Giovanni Michelucci (1891-1991) developed from a rational-ism that made some attempt to harmonize with its urban context (forexample at the Savings Bank in Pistoia of 1950) to a pureExpressionism. In the Church of S. Giovanni overlooking theAutostrada del Sole near Florence (1960-4) [130], he created an iso-lated Expressionist monument of pure German provenance (though italso makes an oblique reference to Le Corbusier's chapel atRonchamp). The hermetic and intensely private work of Carlo Scarpa(1902-78) contrasts sharply with Michelucci s public rhetoric. Scarpa'ssubtle museum designs, such as the Gipsoteca Canoviana in Possagno,Treviso (1956-7) [126 (see page 182)] and the Castelvecchio Museum inVerona (1964), make a unique contribution to a genre which Italianarchitects after the Second World War—including also Albini andBPR—made their own.

ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 1920-65 189

A harder, less precious tendency emerged in the mid-1950s charac-terized by the use of exposed-face concrete structures, for example inthe Marchiondi Spaghiari Institute in Milan (1953–7) by VittorianoViganò (1919–96). Sometimes—as in the apartment building in theVia Campania, Rome (1963–5) by the Passerelli brothers (Vincenzo,b. 1904; Fausto, b. 1910; and Lucio, b. 1922) and an office building in theVia Leopardi, Milan (1959–60) by Ludovico Magistretti (b. 1920)—the structure is clearly differentiated from a lighter infill. Theseprojects are related to international ‘Brutalist’ currents deriving fromthe late work of Le Corbusier.

A new urban dimensionAt the end of the 1950s the attitude of Italian architect-planners to theproblem of the city underwent an important shift. Demographicmovements due to south-north migration as well as technical develop-ments in the building industry led to a redefinition of the scope ofurban planning, now seen to embrace larger ‘city regions’. According toManfredo Tafuri:

Italian intellectuals were becoming aware of a new reality; convulsive urban-ization and the diffusion of mass communication had effected profoundtransformations in society. These changes, along with rapid economic growth,encouraged the formation of interpretative models that quickly replaced thoseof the preceding decade . . . Neorealist myths were replaced by technologicalones . . . The entire concept of urban planning would be overhauled in theearly 1960s.12

The concept of the ‘city region’, seen as a set of dynamic relations in astate of constant change, took the place of the fixed model.13

An essential precondition of this concept was the revalidation of thecity as such. In 1959 the architect Giuseppe Samonà (1898–1983) pub-lished a book entitled Urbanism and the Future of the City in which hedefended the big city and attacked the social assumptions of theGarden City movement and the Anglo-American concept of thesmall-town neighbourhood that had dominated Italian urban theorysince the war. At the same time a number of competitions were held forthe design of new business and administrative centres to be insertedwithin existing cities. The first and most influential of such projectswas Quaroni’s design for the Quartiere Cepalle Barene di S. Giulianoin Mestre (1959) [131], in which the city fabric, free to develop with theminimum of planning constraints, was given focus by a monumentalgroup of buildings facing the lagoon. In this and similar projects, thecity was conceived as two parts, one fixed and symbolic, the other con-tinuously changing and essentially uncontrollable.14

In other contemporaneous projects, this dualistic concept was given

190 architecture in italy 1920‒65

131 Ludovico QuaroniModel, Quartiere CepalleBarene di S. Giuliano, 1959,MestreThis project was one of thefirst examples of large-scaleterritorial thinking by Italianarchitects in the 1960s,linked with the internationalMegastructural movementbut with a greater contextualemphasis.

a more radical interpretation, according to which a continuous skele-ton or infrastructure would contain randomly changing infill.15 Thisdevelopment was not confined to Italy: similar concepts emerging inSweden will be discussed in the next chapter and in the context of theMegastructural movement in chapter 11.

architecture in italy 1920‒65 191

Neoclassicism,Organicism, and theWelfare State:Architecture inScandinavia 1910-65

10

Detail of 135 SigurdLewerentz

St. Mark's Church, 1956-60,Bjorkhaven

After the Second World War, the Modern Movement became identi-fied with the victorious democracies and was adopted by theprofessional establishments in Europe and America. With the emer-gence of the welfare state in Western Europe, a new concept of'planning' took shape—one compatible with liberal democracy andbased on Keynesian economic doctrine.1 The chief model for thiscombination of planning and capitalism was to be found in theScandinavian countries. Sweden in particular became a role model formany architects in Western Europe and America. In order to under-stand the nature of this influence it will be necessary to trace thedevelopment of architecture in Scandinavia since just before the FirstWorld War.

From neoclassicism to Modernism in Denmark and SwedenThe European neoclassical movement of the first decade of the twenti-eth century had a strong impact in Scandinavia, whose architects cameunder the spell of the German Biedermeier revival disseminated byPaul Mebes, Paul Schultze-Naumburg, and Heinrich Tessenow. Theinitial impulse for this tendency came from Denmark, where architectshad been studying such neoclassical predecessors as H. C. Hansensince the i88os.2 Danish and Swedish architects became fascinated bytheir own vernacular and classical traditions as exemplified insixteenth-century castles, Baroque palaces, and early-nineteenth-century neoclassical buildings. An eclectic neoclassicism thatborrowed from local traditions, German eighteenth-century vernacu-lar classicism, Friedrich Gilly (1772-1800), Claude-Nicolas Ledoux,and the Tuscan Renaissance, dominated Scandinavian architecture

193

from the First World War to the late 1920s. The severe Doricistmuseum in Fäborg (1912–15) by Carl Petersen (1874–1923) set the toneof the entire movement.

In Germany, Expressionism intervened between neoclassicism andthe New Objectivity, but in Scandinavia there was a direct transitionfrom one to the other, revealing their similarities rather than their dif-ferences. Both Denmark and Sweden inaugurated programmes ofstate-sponsored housing during the First World War to meet ahousing shortage that had been particularly acute in Scandinavia. Atthat time the model being used for urban housing was that of eigh-teenth-century perimeter blocks. The clearest examples of thetransition from this model to Modernism can be seen in Denmark, inthe Hans Tavsensgade project in Norrebro (1919) by Paul Baumann(1887–1963), where perimeter housing encloses a central communalgarden.3 With the new ideology of science and hygiene, there was aprogressive opening up of the courtyard to the outside, as in the VedClassens Have project in Copenhagen (1924–9) by Carl Petersen andPaul Baumann.4 Eventually, as in Blidah Park (1932–4) by Ivar Bentsen(1876–1943), the perimeter block disappeared altogether, to be replacedby linear bars set in parkland.5 At the same time the regularly piercedclassical wall surface gave way to the free façade, even when load-bearing wall construction was still in use. Unlike Germany in the1920s, however, hybrid, semi-enclosed layouts immediately appeared,as in the Bellavista Estate at Klampenborg near Copenhagen (1934–7)by Arne Jacobsen (1902–71).6

In Sweden, the arrival of the New Objectivity was announced bytwo public projects: the student hostel in the Royal Institute ofTechnology by Sven Markelius (1889–1972) and the StockholmIndustrial Arts Exhibition buildings by Erik Gunnar Asplund(1885–1940) with a team of other architects, both completed in 1930.Whereas Markelius’s building was a competent work in the manner ofOud or Dudok, Asplund’s lakeside exhibition buildings brilliantlyexploited the lightness and transparency of modern materials in anarchitecture that was popular, carnivalesque, and nautical [132]. By1930 Asplund already had a distinguished neoclassical œuvre to hiscredit, including the rustic–classical Woodland Chapel at theCemetery of Enskede in Stockholm (1918–20)7 and the Ledoux-likeStockholm Public Library (1920–8). His successive designs for theaddition to the Courthouse at Gothenburg (1913–36) show the evolu-tion of his style from the national romanticism of the originalcompetition design, through neoclassicism, to Modernism. It is prob-able that Asplund, though undoubtedly a genuine convert to the NewObjectivity, never fully accepted the rigorous schematism of theFrench and German movements and that for him the eighteenth-century categories of bienscéance (propriety) and ‘character’ still had

194 architecture in scandinavia 1910‒65

132 Erik Gunnar AsplundEntrance Pavilion, IndustrialArts Exhibition, 1930,StockholmThe spirit of festival pervadesthis building with its flag-bedecked nauticalreferences. An open structureforming a porte cochère tothe whole exhibition sheltersa smaller structure withinwith terraces like the upperdecks of a liner.

some meaning. His last completed building, the Woodland Crema-torium (1935–40), with its clever fusion of Modernist and classicalelements, would seem to bear this out.

The Modern Movement in Sweden

Social reform and housingIn Sweden, the new architecture was, from the start, closely identifiedwith the social reform movement—just as it had been some ten yearsbefore in Germany. In 1932 the Social Democrats came to power andinstituted a series of reforms inspired by Prime Minister Per AlbinHansen’s slogan comparing the state to ‘the house of the people’(Folkhemmet).8 These reforms were carried out within a liberal democ-racy, but facilitated by a long tradition of state interventionism. Attheir core was the housing programme. During the 1920s a vigorouscooperative movement had paved the way for legislation which was toresult, after 1945, in a fully fledged welfare state. Housing built by thecooperatives (which often had their own architectural departments)was extremely influential in the spread of Modernist architecture inSweden—for example the layout of the Kvarnholmen Companyhousing project by the architects of the KV cooperative9 was to bewidely imitated abroad.

Because of the success of the housing programme and the compar-ative lack of public opposition to the new architecture, the ModernMovement in Sweden was completely lacking in the Jacobinism ofthe French and German movements. Swedish critics found LeCorbusier’s ideas too theoretical and those of the German Moderniststoo dogmatic, believing that the new should be reconciled with theexisting. This attitude was summed up in the words of the critic Hans

architecture in scandinavia 1910‒65 195

Eliot when he wrote: ‘It seems to me that in Sweden—unlike for LeCorbusier in a France weighed down by style—there exists a cultureof dwelling that is both suited to modern purposes and derived fromtradition.’10

The New EmpiricismThe architects Sven Backström (1903–92) and Lief Reinius (1907–95)led the way in a Swedish revisionist movement after the SecondWorld War. They mixed Modernist macro-typologies with familiarconstructional techniques and decorative forms still in the repertoireof ordinary builders and within the taste range of ordinary users[133], seeking a more popular architecture that would acknowledge‘psychological and irrational factors that please us—and—why not?—beauty’.11 This ideology—enthusiastically dubbed ‘The NewEmpiricism’ by the British journal Architectural Review in 1947—wasnot in fact universally accepted in Sweden. The Swedish journalBÿggmästeren—which had ‘gone modern’ in 1928—ran a debate on therelative merits of a rational ‘Apollonian’ and an irrational ‘Dionysian’architecture,12 reviving, in the post-war context, a controversy thathad smouldered beneath the surface of the avant-garde since the1920s.

133 Sven Backström and LiefReiniusRosta Housing Estate, 1946,OrebroThis project is typical ofSwedish social housing in the1940s, with its pitched roofsand pairs of small windows.


Backström and Reinius’s housing estates at Danvikskippan,Gröndal, and Rosta were widely published in the international archi-tectural press. Their ‘honeycomb’ layout, breaking with therectilinearity of rationalism (in fact, borrowed from a 1928 project bythe German architect Alexander Klein)13 was adopted in the NewTown of Cumbernauld in Scotland and the Valco san Paulo housingestate in Rome in the 1950s. British interest in the New Empiricismwas reciprocated by Swedish planners and architects who were influ-enced by British urban planning theory as laid out in PatrickAbercrombie’s Greater London Plan of 1944. The concept of neigh-bourhood community planning was adopted in the Ärsta Social Centre(1943–53) built by Eric and Tore Ahlsén (1901–88 and 1906–91), in thesuburbs of Stockholm as a pilot scheme intended to correct what wasperceived as the principal defect of Swedish housing—its lack of socialfacilities.14

Systems designDuring the 1960s and 1970s there was a dramatic increase in housingproduction in Sweden. A programme was instituted which aimed atproviding one million dwellings between 1965 and 1974.15 Within thisprogramme, 40 per cent of dwellings took the form of high-rise, high-density projects, using a ‘Systems’ approach to planning andconstruction. This approach maximized the use of standardized partsand large-scale prefabrication, and was modelled on the technique ofSystems engineering used by the United States defence industry.16 Theapproach was not restricted to Sweden. In Denmark—to speak ofScandinavia alone—there was also a technically driven development inmass housing which resulted in dense, high-rise projects such as that ofHoje Gladsaxe (1960–70).17

In the late 1960s there was growing public opposition to this kind ofdevelopment, which was often unsatisfactory even at a purely technicallevel. This reaction, which was exacerbated by the fall-out from theFrench student revolt of 1968, was to lead to revisions in governmentpolicy in both housing and urban renewal. Meanwhile, faced withincreasing exclusion by the building industry, architects tended to reactin one of two ways: either by accepting technological developmentsand trying to take control of them; or by retreating into a world of one-off projects of modest scale, where the economics of mass productionand mass consumption did not apply.

Large programmesAn attempt in the public sector simultaneously to rationalize andhumanize large-scale construction can be seen in the ‘Structuralist’


approach adopted by the Swedish National Planning Board.18 Thisinaugurated a new way of thinking about the design of large buildingspredicated on the separation of two systems with different rates ofobsolescence: on the one hand, the building envelope with its struc-tural support; on the other, the functional infill.

Two projects by individual architects also addressed the problem oflarge-scale urban buildings in different and more pragmatic ways. Thefirst is Citizen’s House in Orebro (1965) by Eric and Tore Ahlsén.19

This multi-purpose cultural centre occupies an entire city block; thearchitects attempted to reduce its apparent mass by the articulation ofthe different floors and variations of surface treatment. The secondproject, the Culture House complex in Stockholm (1965–76) by PeterCelsing (1920–74), had weightier urban and national implications[134]. It has three elements: a large theatre, the resited Bank ofSweden, and a cultural centre.20 The theatre is assimilated into theexisting urban fabric, while the other two elements stand out asobjectified, representative buildings. The complex closes the mainnorth–south axis of the city, and is sited on the historical boundarybetween the old town and the nineteenth-century commercial district.Celsing preserved this distinction by attaching the bank and thecultural centre to opposite sides of a thick ‘service’ wall, which sym-bolically represents the ancient city wall. The bank, which faces the oldtown, is a hermetic, classicizing cube. The cultural centre, which facesthe new town, has a long, uninterrupted, fully glazed façade withaccentuated floorplates. The brief for this building was written byPontius Hultén, later to become the first director of the CentrePompidou in Paris, with which Celsing’s building shares theConstructivist idea of a transparent multi-purpose building in which

134 Peter CelsingCultural Centre, CultureHouse, 1965–76, StockholmThe multi-purpose culturalcentre, one of three elementscomprising Culture House,forms a visual barrier dividingthe old from the new town.The fully glazed façade is ametaphor for socialtransparency.


135 Sigurd LewerentzSt. Mark's Church, 1956-60,BjorkhavenThe blind brick fagade of thischurch is given meaning bythe signs of interior activity—windows and projectingchapels—which occurrandomly. In Lewerentz'slater buildings suchfunctional symbolism, withits Gothic connotations,makes a strange contrast withthe architect's earlierneoclassicism.

visible interior functions take the place of traditional ornament.Celsing's project, in giving a different character to each of itscomponents, resists the homogenizing effect of modern technologyand preserves the historical structure of the city; but it accepts thechange of aesthetics and scale brought about by economic andtechnical developments.

Small projectsThe second kind of response adopted by Swedish architects—theretreat from technology to the small-scale—can be illustrated by aseries of small churches built in the 19508 and 19608 to cater for anexpanding suburban population. The most interesting of these were byPeter Celsing and, from an earlier generation, Sigurd Lewerentz(1885-1975). Celsing's Harlanda Church in Gothenburg (1952-8) is aspace defined by three shed-like brick structures.21 Lewerentz builttwo churches during the same period: St. Marks, Bjorkhaven(1956-60) [135] and St. Peter's, Klippan (i962-6).22 Early in his careerLewerentz had been joint winner, with Asplund, of the WoodlandCemetery competition (see note 7). In the 19508 he worked with PeterCelsing on proposals for the restoration of Uppsala Cathedral. His last

ARCHITECTURE IN SCANDINAVIA 1910-65 199

two churches show the influence of the younger architect but whilethey are similar to Celsing’s in their use of exposed brick externally aswell as internally, Lewerentz’s churches are both more daring in theirprimitivist interpretation of tradition, and richer in symbolism, as forexample in the cruciform central column supporting the roof of St.Peter’s Church.

The Modern Movement in Finland

Rationalism and neoclassicismIn 1904 the critic–architects Sigurd Frosterus and Gustav Strengellpublished a pamphlet entitled ‘Architecture: a Challenge to ourOpponents’, criticizing the result of the competition for HelsinkiRailway Station (1906–16), which had been won by Eliel Saarinen witha late-Jugendstil design. The pamphlet attacked national romanti-cism—which had been closely associated with Finnish nationalliberation—proposing in its place an architecture that was rationalistand internationalist. In response to this criticism the final versions ofSaarinen’s design for the station and Lars Sonck’s design for the StockExchange (1911) were both modified. This turn to a structurally expres-sive rationalism based on the teachings of Viollet-le-Duc was,however, short-lived. It was soon overtaken by the Swedish-inspiredneoclassical movement. Like rationalism, this movement was opposedto the individualism of national romanticism, but the norms it pro-posed were formal and classical rather than structural.

Alvar Aalto and the New ObjectivityBoth the rationalist and the neoclassical interludes paved the way forthe reception in Finland of the New Objectivity. Among the group ofyoung architects who turned to the new movement, Erik Bryggman(1891–1955) and Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) stand out. Their joint entry forthe Turku Fair competition of 1929 is widely seen as having introducedthe new movement to the Finnish public.

Alvar Aalto soon emerged as the leader of the group with his com-petition-winning designs for the Public Library in Viipuri (1927–35)and the Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Paimio (1929–33) [136, 137]. Theoriginal entry for the Viipuri Library competition was neoclassical,but during the prolonged design development it was transformed intoa Modernist scheme. The final version, with its two hermeticallysealed bars sliding against each other in echelon, skewered by a trans-verse entry system, was Constructivist in its dynamic asymmetry,though it retained the ghost of its original Beaux-Arts plan. PaimioSanatorium, on the contrary, was Modernist from the start, with


136 Alvar AaltoTuberculosis Sanatorium,1929–33, PaimioView of entrance courtyard.The wing on the rightcontains the wards.

slender, loosely articulated wings, angled to engage with the surround-ing landscape.23 In both buildings, smooth white wall surfaces withMediterranean overtones are even more in evidence than in otherexamples of international Modernism. But a new feature was theattention paid to details; in the Paimio Sanatorium Aalto designed allthe furniture and fittings. It was because of their concern for the inti-mate and tactile aspects of modern design, as well as their manifestformal qualities, that these two buildings instantly became icons of amore resilient Modernism.

Regionalists and organicistsIn the late 1930s, Finnish Modernist architects followed the Europeantrend in questioning the mechanistic premises of the New Objectivity,returning to natural materials and traditional details. This is true ofboth Bryggman and Aalto; but whereas Bryggman, in theResurrection Funerary Chapel in Turku (1938–41), introduced directquotations from tradition in the form of vaults and arches, Aalto, like


137AlvarAalto

Site plan, TuberculosisSanatorium, 1929-33,PaimioTwo short blocks containingcommunal and technicalaccommodation are looselyanchored to a static T-shapedelement formed by the wardblock and the entrance wing,creating a splayed forecourt.The complex opens itself tothe surrounding landscapebut already shows Aalto'spenchant for semi-enclosedcompositions.A Patients'wards, rest

terracesB Common roomsC Technical and service

roomsD GaragesE Doctors' housesF Employees' houses

Le Corbusier, retained the 'empty* language of the new movement,seeking to fill it with new metaphors. In the Villa Mairea atNoormarkku (1937^9) [138, 139], taut, curved walls faced with woodsidings are contrasted with sharp-edged brick walls painted white. Inthe living room—which like Miess Tugendhat House combinesdifferent living zones within a single space—screens of wooden polesin random clusters become metonyms for the pine forest visible throughwall-to-wall plate-glass windows, creating a synthesis of modern tech-nology, artisanship, and nature. This building, with its abruptlyjuxtaposed elements and its metaphors of nature, was a radical depar-ture from the linear logic of the New Objectivity.

The Villa Mairea was built for the entrepreneurs Harry and MaireGullichsen, for whom Aalto became architect in 1934, building theSunila Pulp Mill and its company workers' housing (1936-9). In thesame year he co-founded, with Maire Gullichsen, the Artek furniturecompany and started designing chairs in laminated plywood. Thesewere inspired by the Luther Company in Tallinn, Estonia,24 but theywere also a development of the bentwood and tubular steel traditions.In Aalto's furniture the application of new techniques to naturalmaterials resulted in shapes reminiscent of the paintings of Hans Arp.

202 ARCHITECTURE IN SCANDINAVIA 1910-65

138AlvarAalto

Villa Mairea, 1937-9,NoormarkkuThis interior view shows thescreen protecting thestaircase, which mimics thepine forest surrounding thehouse.

139AlvarAalto

Villa Mairea, 1937-9,NoormarkkuGround-floor plan, showingthe way the house wraps itselfround the garden to form aprotected clearing.

ARCHITECTURE IN SCANDINAVIA 1910-65 203

140AlvarAaltoTown Hall, 1949-52,SaynatsaloThis small rustic building isset around a courtyard openat two adjacent corners. Theentrance to the court isdominated by theasymmetrical mass of thecouncil chamber,symbolizing the community.

Aalto's enjoyment of the Gullichsens' patronage kept his explorationof mechanical techniques within a certain Jugendstil tradition.

After the war, Aalto began to receive many commissions for publicbuildings, including urban projects such as the Pensions Institute inHelsinki, and rural projects such as the Town Hall in Saynatsalo(1949-52) [140] and the Jyvaskyla University Campus (1950-7). Theseprojects constitute a well-defined middle period in Aalto s work, char-acterized typologically by semi-enclosed courtyards reminiscent ofvernacular farm buildings, and materially by the extensive use of hand-made brick and clear-varnished wood. The return to picturesquecompositions dominated by volumes signifying community, indicatesa partial revival of the spirit of national romanticism.

In the late 19508, beginning with the Vuoksenniska Church inImatra (1957-9) [141], another change takes place in Aalto s work.Rustic brickwork is replaced by white plaster or marble facings, whileat the same time the forms become increasingly complex. This elabo-ration—which many critics (using a risky analogy) have called'Baroque'—can to some extent be attributed to a change in the type ofprogramme, from buildings providing the post-war infrastructure ofthe modern welfare state (universities, administrative buildings) tothose with a more symbolic function (cultural centres, concert halls,libraries, churches). But in spite of these changes, what remains con-stant in Aalto's work is its drawing on the forms of the natural world toexpress growth and movement as a metaphor of human life. In this ithas certain affinities with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Rationalists and ConstructivistsAalto's well-deserved reputation has tended to obscure other tenden-cies at work in Finnish Modernism. In the 19508 there were two broad

204 ARCHITECTURE IN SCANDINAVIA 1910-65

141 Alvar AaltoVuoksenniska Church,1957–9, ImatraThis building marks thebeginning of a moresumptuous phase in Aalto’swork, in which refinedmaterials such as marblefacings replace rusticbrickwork. The forms alsobecome geometrically morecomplex and curvilinear.

cultural models operating in Finnish architecture: on the one handAalto’s organic, regionalist model; on the other, a more rationalist orpurist model upheld by architects like Viljo Revell (1910–64) and AulisBlomstedt (1906–79), who continued to work in a vein closer to theideas of the early Modern Movement, particularly in its social con-cerns and its interest in modern materials and techniques. Aspects ofthis tendency were prolonged into the 1960s by younger architectssuch as Aarno Ruusuvuori (1925–92) and Pekka Pitkänen (b. 1927).The latter’s Funerary Chapel in Turku (1967) is a sensitive, minimalistwork in precisely formed in situ concrete [142]. Its pure, abstract formsare in strong contrast with the nearby Resurrection Chapel byBryggman.

At the end of the 1960s the conflict between these two models cameinto the open. The young rationalists (or ‘Constructivists’, as theycalled themselves) opposed what they saw as the Romantic tendenciesin the later work of Aalto and followers like Reima Pietilä (1923–93).They accused the older generation of concentrating on monumental‘cultural’ buildings based on a subjectivist aesthetic lacking methodol-ogy, and of ignoring the social role of architecture.25 They weresupported by Aulis Blomstedt, head of the Helsinki University ofTechnology since 1959—a prominent theoretician who had developeda modular system with the aim of reconciling modern mass productionwith traditional architectural values.26

The Constructivists, who played an important part in Finnisharchitectural discourse until the early 1970s, upheld the early Modern


Movement ideal of collaboration between the architect, the engineer,and the building industry. But after they had realized some interestingsmall-scale industrial buildings, it became apparent that in the largerfield the building industry was not prepared to operate on their terms.In a later book, Kirmo Mikkola (1934–86), who was himself an influen-tial member of the Constructivist faction, put the matter thus: ‘Thetruth [of a technology-based architecture] was more difficult than theideal. The sought-after collaboration with industry did not material-ize. The big construction companies stuck to their rigid unit systemcreated in the 1960s without any assistance from the architects.’27

At the same time Mikkola acknowledged that the Constructivistshad excluded ‘plastic and symbolic means of expression’ from theirbuildings.

As in Sweden, the Systems-based approach described by Mikkolahad its greatest impact in the field of public housing. Since the 1930slow-cost social housing in Finland had consisted largely of dormitorysuburbs with few social facilities. (A notable exception to this was theGarden City of Tapiola, begun in 1953 to the master plan of Arne Ervi,which was conceived as a self-contained community.) One of the chief

142 Pekka PitkänenFuneral Chapel, 1967, TurkuThe work of this interestingarchitect represents arationalist tendency inFinnish architecture in the1960s that was, at least inpart, a reaction againstAalto’s increasinglynaturalistic approach. Unlikesome of the other rationalists,however, Pitkänen’s work wasmore purist thantechnological or social inspirit.


models for these was Aalto’s Sunila Housing, in which low-rise ter-races were freely deployed in an Arcadian setting. This type becameknown as ‘Forest Housing’. The social drawbacks of ‘Forest Housing’had meanwhile become obvious. The application of large-scaleSystems design to isolated suburbs had the effect of aggravating thesedeficiencies, creating aesthetically poor and socially alienating envi-ronments. The mechanical application of industrial techniques tohousing, and the concomitant planning strategies, therefore led toenvironmental results that were the exact opposite of the idyllic sym-biosis of technology and nature envisaged by the ModernMovement—especially by the rural and regionalist version of it pro-moted by Alvar Aalto.


143 ConstantNew Babylon: Group ofSectors, 1959This first-floor plan of NewBabylon shows an unplannedcity of the future, conceived ofas expanding indefinitely untilit eventually covers the wholeearth.

Urbanism and housing in late Le CorbusierAfter his 1929 lecture tour of South America, Le Corbusier becameinvolved in a series of urban projects that were very different from hisprevious city plans. Whereas the Ville Radieuse had been a schematicdesign for an ideal site, the projects for Rio de Janeiro (1929) and the‘Obus’ (‘explosive shell’) plans for the city of Algiers (1932–42) wereintended for actual sites. They were also closely linked to LeCorbusier’s new-found interest in l ’homme réel and regional culturesbased on local customs and geographies. In these projects modernarchitecture and engineering extend their reach to vast colonial andpost-colonial territories and assume a new cosmological significance intheir struggle with primordial nature.

In Rio and Algiers Le Corbusier did not abandon his earlier urban-ism, but its forms became more sensitive to local topographies, andthere is a greater absorption of private life by monumental, collectiveforms. Already in 1922, the Ville Contemporaine had envisaged a newintegration of private and collective life. For example, public circula-tion was seen as a single system, with the corridors serving the flatsbecoming streets-in-the-air replacing access roads. In the Rio andAlgiers plans the integration of circulation and housing became thedominant theme. Housing was slung under a viaduct carrying the mainhighway, recalling the ‘Roadtown’ project of 1910 by the Americanarchitect Edgar Chambless [144]. In Algiers, the housing viaductfollowed a long sinuous route along the coast, while a separate group ofapartments—through which another road was cut at mid-level—wassited further inland on the Fort de l’Empereur hills, connected by ahigh-level viaduct to the business centre at the port, the ‘cité d’affaires’.Roads and housing were treated as a single, integrated system. One ofthe most interesting aspects of the project is the separation of infra-structure and infill, allowing the inhabitants to build their own houses

209

11

From Le Corbusierto Megastructures:Urban Visions1930–65

within the structure as if on suburban lots—the adaptation the Dom-ino idea of 1914 (see page 143) to a multi-storey building [145]. Apublicly financed highway provides the framework for privatelyfinanced housing.

Le Corbusier’s Algiers project coincided with growing public pres-sure for a development plan for the rapidly growing city. At the sametime that he was designing his unsolicited schemes, other proposals ofa more conventional kind were being pursued by the Algiers authori-ties themselves. Le Corbusier’s first plan was submitted in 1933 and wasimmediately followed by two further proposals (1933–4) in which thehousing component was progressively eliminated. The project wasdefinitively rejected in 1934, but Le Corbusier continued to submit—with equal lack of success—further proposals for the cité d’affaires forseveral years.1

It was while working on these that Le Corbusier developed the ideaof the sun-breaker (brise-soleil), first proposed for the Durand projectin Algiers in 1933. This ‘invention’ had enormous consequences in hislater style. Much more than a means of solar protection, the sun-breaker was an expressive device giving back to the Corbusian façadethe plasticity and play of scale that had been sacrificed with the sup-pression of structure. Nothing shows more clearly the similarities anddifferences between Le Corbusier and the Beaux-Arts. In his finalversion of the Algiers office tower Le Corbusier reverts to a primitive

144 Le CorbusierModel, Obus A Project forAlgiers, 1933In this first project masshousing is built under thecoastal viaduct while thepolitical and administrativeclasses are housed on thehills of Fort de l’Empereur.The latter is linked to thebusiness centre at the port bya viaduct that flies over theArab city, ensuring itspreservation and minimalcontact between colonizersand the native population.

210 from le corbusier to megastructures: urban visions 1930‒65

145 Le CorbusierObus A Project for Algiers,1933This drawing of the Fort del’Empereur housing showsthe separation of supportstructure and apartments,which have a shorter lifecycle and can be in any style.

classicism quite different from the historical classicism of AugustPerret. The ‘orders’ are replaced by brise-soleils which give scale andmeaning to the façade through the representation of the hierarchy ofspaces within the building [146].

In 1945, Raoul Dautry, Minister of Reconstruction in the first post-war French government, commissioned Le Corbusier to build a unitéd’habitation (approximately: ‘unit of housing’) in Marseilles.2 The keyconcept was that the structure should be large enough to incorporatethe communal services required to support the daily lives of its inhabi-tants. The idea of such a collective was not new: examples were to befound in the Soviet Union and Sweden dating from the 1930s. Wherethe completed Unité d’Habitation (1946–52) differed from these was inits strong monumental presence. Although clearly influenced by suchRussian schemes as the Vesnin brothers’ communal housing project forKusnetsk of 1930,3 the building does not reflect the Vesnins’ socialistagenda. According to Le Corbusier it was the culmination of his‘concept of modern middle-class housing’.4 It is closer to Charles

from le corbusier to megastructures: urban visions 1930‒65 211

146 Le CorbusierObus E Project for Algiers,1939This office tower is the firstappearance in Le Corbusier’swork of the brise-soleil (sun-breaker) as an integral part ofa concrete structure, bymeans of which the internalhierarchy of the building ismade legible.

Fourier's ideal collective palace, \htphalanstere (which similarly had apopulation of 1,800), a Carthusian monastery, or a transatlantic liner—all of them self-contained communities. Internally, Le Corbusier useda modified version of the interlocking duplex apartments first pro-posed for the Ville Contemporaine in 1922. Externally a system ofconcrete sun-breakers, doubling as loggias and derived from theAlgiers office tower, made legible the internal spaces. Le Corbusierdescribed the Algiers office tower as 'a palace, no longer a box—apalace worthy of reigning over the landscape'.5 He could equally wellhave been describing the Unite.

Comparing Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation with his housing atAlgiers we see that they represent two very different concepts. Whilethe Unite is a discrete whole, designed to the last detail by the architect,Algiers is an endless infrastructure with random infill. A similar differ-ence existed between two new urban concepts that emerged duringand after the Second World War, both of which challenged the ortho-doxies of the rationalist tradition. The first was that of the NewMonumentality, the second the rather complex urban philosophy ofTeam X.

The New MonumentalityThe idea of a New Monumentality was formulated by the older gener-ation of modern architects in Europe and America in the 19405.Already, in the mid-i93os, there had been a call by architects to re-introduce the concept of the monument into the Modernist canon. By'monument' they did not mean 'memorial' in the strict etymologicalsense, but the broader idea, introduced around the turn of the twenti-eth century, of representative as opposed to utilitarian buildings. InEurope the concept was certainly influenced by the return to classi-cism in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, but for the Modernists areturn to monumentality meant a return to underlying principles notto a specific style, and the debate remained at a somewhat abstractlevel.6 One of the most striking post-war examples of such a non-historicist monumentality was Le Corbusier's Pilgrimage Church ofNotre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp (1951-5).

It was only in the 19408 that the proponents of a NewMonumentality began to connect it with a specific set of social andpolitical ideas. This happened when American Modernists re-identi-fied the monument with democracy—just as their predecessors had atthe time of the City Beautiful movement. The context of this re-evaluation was the American government's New Deal buildingprogramme, which included the Tennessee Valley Authority. In 1941,the architect George Howe declared: 'The power plants and living

212 FROM LE CORBUSIER TO MEGASTRUCTURES: URBAN VISIONS 1930-65

centres of TVA are an effort to carve a new pattern of life out of earth,air, and water ... and make the land the likeness of the people so thatthe people can come to be a likeness of the land.'7 Three years later,Elizabeth Mock, a curator of architecture at the Museum of ModernArt in New York, wrote:

A democracy needs monuments, even though its requirements are not thoseof a dictatorship. There must be occasional buildings which raise the everydaycasualness of living to a higher and more ceremonial plane, buildings whichgive dignified and coherent form to that interdependence of the individualand the social group which is the very nature of democracy.8

In 1943, Sigfried Giedion—then in exile in the United States—enteredthe debate. In collaboration with the French painter Fernand Legerand the Catalan architect Josep Lluis Sert (1902-83) he wrote a mani-festo entitled 'Nine Points on Monumentality',9 and followed it upwith an essay called 'The Need for a New Monumentality'.10 In thisessay, Giedion focused on the need for civic centres symbolizing theidea of 'community' in which all the visual arts would collaborate,creating a new Gesamtkunstwerk. His concept of 'community' isdifferent from that of Howe and Mock. It does not invoke the idea ofdemocracy, but rather—at least by implication—the German conceptof Volk. His description of the civic centre reminds one of Taut sVolkhausy though his more immediate source is Le Corbusier.According to Giedion: 'Only the imagination of real creators is suitedto building the lacking civic centres, to instil once more in the publicthe old love of festivals, and to incorporate all the new materials, move-ment, colour, and technical possibilities. Who else could utilize themfor opening up new ways to invigorate the masses?'

In Le Corbusier's work, the civic centre makes its first tentativeappearance in 1934 with the projects for the Radiant Farm and the cityof Nemours in North Africa. One year earlier Sert had planned thenew industrial town of Cidade dos Motores near Rio de Janeiro. Thedistinctly Corbusian buildings of its civic centre are arranged to form asemi-enclosed square reminiscent of an Iberian Plaza Mayor. As if inresponse Le Corbusier, in his civic centre for St. Die of 1946, included aloosely defined square. In this project the group of buildings formingthe civic centre includes a unite ^habitation, clearly indicating LeCorbusier's intention of giving monumental status to housing.

Two capital cities: Chandigarh and BrasiliaThe capital cities of Chandigarh11 and Brasilia12 both embody the ideaof monumentality, but their monumental centres have national asopposed to local connotations.

FROM LE CORBUSIER TO MEGASTRUCTURESI URBAN VISIONS 1930-65 213

147LeCorbusierCapitol, 1956, ChandigarhIn the final site plan acomplex organization ofmonumentally conceivedbuildings represents thedifferent organs ofgovernment. The 'connectivetissue' of roads and parterresrelating the buildings to eachother was never built, nor wasthe governor's palace (no. 3)which the Indian primeminister, Jawarhalal Nehru,thought too authoritarian agesture.

148LeCorbusierThe Secretariat, 1951-63,with the State AssemblyBuilding in the foreground,ChandigarhFor the Capitol buildings LeCorbusier devised a kind ofprimitive classical Esperantowhich exploited the heroicpossibilities of rough-finished, in situ reinforcedconcrete.

The original plan for Chandigarh—the capital of the new state ofEast Punjab—was prepared by the American planner Albert Mayer.After the untimely death of his Polish-American associate MatthewNowicki in 1950, Mayer was replaced by the team of Jane Drew,Maxwell Fry, and Pierre Jeanneret, with Le Corbusier as consultantand sole architect of the Capitol (state government buildings). For theoverall plan Le Corbusier merely regularized Mayer's Garden Citylayout, but for the Capitol he started again from the beginning.Nowicki's first scheme for the Capitol (which he later modified) was arectangular walled 'city' based on the seventeenth-century Mogul fortsof Agra and Delhi. Le Corbusier rejected any such model. The threeelements of the programme—the High Court, the Assembly, and theSecretariat—were designed as a vast acropolis of separate monumentalstructures, set against the backdrop of the Himalayan foothills [147].These buildings have the strong GestaltofLe Corbusier's late style, andin addition they are invested with a symbolism which, although partlybased on a private, associative language, has an immediately felt power[148]. Le Corbusier's primitive, classical Esperanto reflected hisconcept of a universal modern architecture modified by regional tradi-tions.13 It fitted well with Prime Minister Jawarhalal Nehru'saspirations to make India into a modern secular state.

The city of Brasilia has to be seen in the context of the unique devel-opment of Modernism in Brazil. The Modern Movement wasembraced almost overnight by the younger generation of Brazilianarchitects in 1930—the year that the future dictator Getulio Vargas waselected president. Above all, it was Le Corbusier's rhetorical languagethat appealed to the Brazilian architects. It was as if the force of an ideacould give instant birth to the new architecture and charge it withpopular symbolism. Among the many impressive public buildings inwhich the language of Le Corbusier was adapted to Brazilian condi-tions, the Ministry of Education and Public Health in Rio (1936-45) isoutstanding [149]. Designed by a team which included Lucio Costa(1902-98), Jorge Moreira (1904-92), Affonso Reidy (1909-64), andOscar Niemeyer (b. 1907) working in close collaboration with LeCorbusier himself, the building broke with the universal perimeterblock pattern of the Rio street grid, becoming an objet-type in thecentre of the block. In its diagrammatic separation of offices and col-lective functions this building seemed to many—even in Europe—amore perfect realization of Corbusian ideas than Le Corbusier's ownpublic buildings, constrained as they often were by odd-shaped urbansites.

The idea for a new capital city of Brazil on the central plateau,which had been envisaged ever since the eighteenth century, wasfinally realized by President J. Kubitschek de Oliveira in 1956. Thecompetition for the masterplan was won by Lucio Costa, and Oscar


Niemeyer was appointed architect of the government centre. Costa’splan was simplistically schematic: it comprised two axes, one residen-tial and the other honorific, the latter terminating at one end in theinstitutions of central government and at the other in those of themunicipality. The central commercial and cultural facilities occurred atthe intersection of the two axes—an abstract point in space. Perhapsfor this reason, Brasilia seems to be a city without a centre. Niemeyer’sgovernment complex was developed in a brilliant, theatrical style thathad all the facility but little of the vigour of his early work and seemsdiminished by the infinitude of the surrounding landscape.

Chandigarh and Brasilia are both middle-class cities from whichlower-paid workers, necessary for the cities’ economies, are excluded.In Chandigarh, though officially non-existent, such workers are

149 Lúcio Costa, OscarNiemeyer, and others;consultant Le CorbusierMinistry of Education andPublic Health, 1936–45, Riode JaneiroThis remarkable design is thepurest built example of a newtype, already proposed by LeCorbusier in his unbuiltRentenanstalt project forZürich (1933). The officeslab is set back from thestreet frontage on pilotis,freeing the entire site forpublic open space. It wasalso the first building to useLe Corbusier’s brises-soleil.

216 from le corbusier to megastructures: urban visions 1930‒65

allowed to squat in the interstices of the city;14 in Brasilia, they are ban-ished to unplanned satellite towns from which they commute daily towork [150]. The two cities, despite their Modernist and universalistpretensions, owe much to the persistent traditions of their respectivecountries.

150 Lucio Costa

Brasilia Masterplan, 1957The plan shows the originalconcept entirely engulfed byunplanned satellitedevelopment.

CIAM and Team XAfter the Second World War the urban doctrine tacitly accepted byarchitects of the Modern Movement was that promoted by theCongres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM). CIAMhad been founded in 1928 as the international platform of the ModernMovement, which at that time was still opposed by large sections ofthe profession. Branches were quickly formed in the different coun-tries of Western Europe and America. The first meeting was held at LaSarraz, Switzerland, in the chateau of Helene de Mandrot, a wealthypatroness of the arts who had been a keen supporter of Art Deco untilpersuaded by Le Corbusier and Sigfried Giedion to take up the causeof modern architecture (and who was to commission a house from LeCorbusier at Le Pradet near Toulon the following year).15 Four furthermeetings were to take place before the Second World War. Housingand urbanism soon became the main focus of discussion at these con-gresses. The early debates reflected the conflict between the leftists,who saw the movement as an arm of the socialist revolution, and theliberals for whom the aims of the movement were primarily culturaland technical. After 1930, when most of the leftists moved to Russia,CIAM became increasingly dominated by Le Corbusier and thegeneral secretary of the organization, Sigfried Giedion.

FROM LE CORBUSIER TO MEGASTRUCTURES: URBAN VISIONS 1930-65 2IJ

CIAM urban doctrine became enshrined in the 'Charte d'Athenes'(Athens Charter'). Published by Le Corbusier in 1942, while Francewas under German occupation, this document was Le Corbusier'sheavily edited version of the unpublished proceedings of the fourthCIAM meeting, which had taken place on the SS Patris en route fromMarseilles to Athens in 1933. Most of the book was a restatement ofcommonplaces so general as to be acceptable to almost anyone, but itwas strictly rationalistic and analytical in tone and was based on a clas-sificatory system that divided the city into four watertight functions:living, working, recreation, and circulation. This Cartesian and for-malistic approach to the complex problems of the city wasunacceptable to younger members of CIAM who joined after the war.

In spite of the ideas reflected in the Athens Charter, Le Corbusierhimself, as we have seen, had been moving steadily away from hisearlier rationalism, although he had never fully disavowed it. It wasthis ambiguity that allowed him to remain an important figure for thepost-war generation, who felt that his ideas had been trivialized bymost of the second generation of modern architects—those born in thefirst decade of the twentieth century. A sort of alliance was formedbetween Le Corbusier and the young members, who began—with LeCorbusier's complicity—to play a dominant role in CIAM discussionsfrom the ninth congress at Aix-en-Provence (1953) onwards. In 1954,after the Dutch 'Doom Group' had explicitly repudiated the AthensCharter, the CIAM council entrusted an enlarged Doom Group withthe organization of the tenth CIAM meeting, to be held in Dubrovnikin 1956. At this point, the Doom-based group started calling itselfTeamX'.16

Dubrovnik was to be the last meeting of CIAM in its old form. As aresult of the irresolvable conflict that arose during the meeting betweenthe middle and the younger generations, CIAM, which had clearlyceased to represent a monolithic Modern Movement, was dissolvedand replaced by a new 'CIAM research group for social and visual rela-tionships'. The first and only congress under the new aegis took placeat Otterlo, Holland, in 1959. It was at this meeting that the Britisharchitects Alison and Peter Smithson (Alison 1928—93; Peter 1923-2003)and the Dutch Aldo van Eyck (1918-99) attacked the Italian 'contextu-alists' (see page 187).

Team X was opposed not only to the Athens Charter but also to theNew Monumentality. It is true that both wanted to reintroduce intomodern architecture the experience of 'community', but while the NewMonumentality aimed at creating the symbols of community withinan urban framework that was still rationalistic, Team X wanted anarchitecture that was the expression of community. Whereas oneaccepted architecture as a mediated representation, the other sought aprimal language in which form and meaning would be one. In attack-

2l8 FROM LE CORBUSIER TO MEGASTRUCTURES: URBAN VISIONS 1930-65

151 Alison and PeterSmithsonUrban Reidentification, 1959This drawing, similar inconcept to Golden Lane, is anadaptation of Le Corbusier's aredent housing to localcontingencies, giving animpression of organic growth.

ing the Athens Charter, the Smithsons claimed: 'Our hierarchy ofassociations is woven into a modified continuum representing the truecomplexity of human association ... we are of the opinion that a hier-archy of human association should replace the functional hierarchy ofthe Charte d'Athenes.'17 For them the key to community in the city didnot lie in a separate 'city core' consisting of representative public build-ings, but within the realm of dwelling itself, where a more immediaterelationship between the nuclear family and the community could beestablished.

It is important to realize, however, that in spite of Team X's mani-fest opposition to Le Corbusier's rationalist urban theory, it was fromLe Corbusier that they drew an important part of their inspiration.This was particularly true of the Smithsons and of Georges Candilis(1913-95), Alexis Josic (b. 1921), and Shadrach Woods (1923-73) (whohad formed part of the design team working on the Marseilles United'Habitation). The Smithsons' Golden Lane workers' housing com-petition project of 1952 was essentially a modification of Le Corbusier'sa redents housing project for Hot no. 6 in Paris of 1936, with its suppleadaptation to the contingencies of progressive slum clearance and its'streets in the air'[151].

According to the Smithsons, infrastructure should do more thanfacilitate spontaneous community formation—it was needed to give'coherence' to the urban structure: 'The aim of urbanism is compre-hensibility, i.e. clarity of organization.'18 In this, they seemed toacknowledge that there was a gap between spontaneous human associ-ation and its formal representation.19 For the Smithsons, however, thisproblem could be overcome by means of a dualistic planning strategythat developed 'road and communication systems as the urban infra-structure . . . [using] the possibilities offered by "throw-away"

FROM LE CORBUSIER TO MEGASTRUCTURES: URBAN VISIONS 1930-65 219

152 Georges Candilis, AlexisJosic, and Shadrach Woods

Free University, 1964-79,BerlinIn this project, a regular gridformed the matrix for an ad/?oc development ofbuildings. Everybody is equaland free under the law. Thetheme of freedom withinorder is reinforced by JeanProuve's prefabricatedconstructional system.

technology to create a new sort of environment with different cycles ofchange for the different functions'.20

These ideas were developed in a series of projects in the early 19605.For example, the partnership of Candilis, Josic, and Woods developedschemes with circulation networks to which different functionalvolumes were randomly attached. These networks were either tree-like (as in the Toulouse-le-Mirail or Caen Herouville projects, both1961) or grid-like (as in the Free University of Berlin, 1964-79) [152].The same concept of a defining network of circulation lay behindan earlier project: the Orphanage in Amsterdam (1957-60) by Aldovan Eyck [153]. Anticipating the Free University in some respects,the orphanage is a 'mat' building, isomorphous with the spaceit occupies. But here, instead of a dialectic between a fixedinfrastructure and a random infill, we find a dialectic betweenrepeating external forms and interior spaces that move freely acrosstheir borders, creating—in Van Eyck's terminology—'in-betweenspaces' and 'thresholds' by which private and public spaces areconnected.

Systems theoryBy the end of the 19505 there existed two conceptual models for thekind of urban ideas being explored by Team X. The first model was aconflation of social theories based on the concept of 'community'(Gemeinschaff) and the psychology of perception.21 These ideas oftenseem to lie behind the 'tree' and 'threshold' metaphors used by Woods,the Smithsons, and Van Eyck. But latent in much of the work of TeamX there was another model that had been gaining ground in the humansciences since the Second World War: 'Systems theory'. This seeks toapply the common principle of self-regulation to machines, psychol-ogy, and society—in fact to all 'organized' wholes. Founding itselfon the belief that instrumental technology now replaces all other

220 FROM LE CORBUSIER TO MEGASTRUCTURESI URBAN VISIONS 1930-65

153AldovanEyck

Orphanage, 1957-60,AmsterdamThe plan shows how in thisproject a number of semi-autonomous 'houses' areunified within a tree-likecirculation structure to forma community.

tendencies, it sees societies as information systems designed to main-tain 'homeostasis'—decentralized wholes in which no one level is 'incontrol'.22

Though both models differ from rationalism in being organic andholistic (i.e. they cannot be mechanically broken down into separateparts), they are nonetheless in conflict with each other. The first looksback to the lost 'wholeness' of craft-based communities and cultures:the second looks forward to a capitalist world of open structures withinwhich democracy, individualism, commodification, and an ethos ofconsumption are unimpeded by any a priori set of cultural codes. Thatthis contradiction may have affected the Smithsons never to be fully


resolved seems to be reflected in the somewhat indecisive quality oftheir later work.

Aspects of Systems theory, particularly cybernetics, found their wayinto architectural discourse in the late 19505. Swedish and DutchStructuralism and the Megastructure movement all saw them asapplicable to the complex problems of design in modern mass society.A 'cybernetic', self-regulating element was introduced into the waycities and large buildings were conceptualized. Instead of users beingpresented with predetermined spatial patterns, they were now—atleast in theory—offered the means to alter their own micro-environ-ment and decide their own patterns of behaviour.

154 Piet Blom and Joop vanStigtVillage of Children, 1962In this opening salvo of DutchStructuralism, Van Eyck'sconcept of additive 'houses'form ing a higher-ordercommunity is systematized inthree dimensions.

Dutch StructuralismIn 1952 the Dutch architect Wim van Bodegraven underlined the needfor architects to create a structure of forms that could change with timeyet retain its coherence and 'meaning'.23 This demand, as well as theexample of Van Eyck's orphanage with its superimposition of central-ized order and local freedom, were the inspiration behind a newtendency in Holland known as 'Structuralism'. This was initiated byPiet Blom (b. 1934) and Joop van Stigt in their 1962 Prix de Rome designfor a 'Village of Children', in which the combination of order and flexi-bility, centrality and dispersal, was achieved in terms of a prefabricatedsystem which allowed identical, 'recognizable' units to be combinedaccording to a set of rules [154]. This basic idea was further developedby Herman Hertzberger (b. 1932) and others in Holland, where its appli-cation became rather widespread in the 19608 and i97os.24


MegastructuresThe Megastructural movement, which was contemporaneous withDutch Structuralism, was not concerned with fixed, recognizableunits. It was posited on a built environment without cultural normsand in a continuous state of flux. In a publication of 1964, the architectFumihiko Maki (b. 1928), one of the original members of the JapaneseMetabolists, distinguished between three types of what he called 'col-lective form': firstly, Compositional form—in which there is a fixedrelation between different pre-formed buildings (this is the classicalway of achieving collective form and includes the civic centre at St. Dieby Le Corbusier and that of Brasilia by Niemeyer); secondly,Megastructural form—a large frame in which all the functions of a cityare housed (this involves the coexistence of structures with differentrates of obsolescence); and thirdly, Group form—an additive collec-tion of typologically similar building units (characteristic of'unplanned' vernacular villages).25

Within this broad classification, 'Megastructural form' presents anarray of different approaches. A very broad distinction can be madebetween projects which stress the long-term elements and those whichstress the variable elements—a matter of emphasis, since examples offlexible and fixed elements occur in both groups. Within the first category the Japanese Metabolists and the British Archigram will bediscussed.

Metabolism and ArchigramThe Metabolists emerged at the World Design Conference in Tokyoof 1960, simultaneously with the publication of the Tokyo Bay Projectby Kenzo Tange (b. 1913). In describing this project, Tange used wordswith biological connotations such as 'cell' and 'metabolism'26 and helater claimed that the project was a breakthrough from 'functionalism'to a 'structural approach',27 suggesting that he was aware of at leastsome aspects of Systems theory. Tange's project proposed the con-struction of a new city of 10 million people over the water in Tokyo Bayas a solution to the acute problem of urban congestion in Tokyo. Thenew city was centred around a double transport spine which housed allthe public buildings and to which were attached extendible secondaryspines of housing. Tange had worked in Le Corbusier s atelier, and theplan resembled that of the Ville Radieuse in its overall structure. But itdiffered from the Ville Radieuse in its total detachment from anynatural terrain and in its randomized, abacus-like housing units [155].In two other projects—Cities in the Air (1959) by Kiyonori Kikutake(b. 1928), also proposed for Tokyo Bay, and the Joint Core Stem

FROM LE CORBUSIER TO MEGASTRUCTURES: URBAN VISIONS 1930-65 223

155 Kenzo Tanged eft)

Tokyo Bay Project, 1960Like the VilleRadieuse, thisproject consists of a spine ofpublic buildings flanked byhousing able to expandlaterally. But where thepattern of housing ispredetermined in LeCorbusier's scheme, here it isshown as unpredictable. Onlythe macro-structure iscontrolled. The micro-structure is self-regulating.

156 Aratalsozaki (above)Joint Core Stem system,1960I nth is project a quasi-molecular pattern is givenmonumental scale.

proposal (1960) by Arata Isozaki (b. 1931)—there is a complete breakwith Corbusian precedent. In both, repeating series of multi-storeycylindrical nodes form the infrastructure, either standing alone or con-nected by deep lattice beams which contain housing [156].28

In the Metabolist projects, Utopian and pragmatic aspects are notclearly differentiated, which seems to be a general characteristic ofJapanese Modernism. The work of the British Archigram group, onthe contrary, was unashamedly Utopian and apocalyptic in its imagery.The group was founded by Peter Cook (b. 1936) in 1961 and itsinternationally distributed broadsheets helped to consolidate theMegastructural movement's international self-image. The richiconography of projects such as Plug-in City (1964) was derived frommany sources, including space comics, popular science fiction, Pop Art,and the technology of oil refineries and underwater research, as well asfrom such Metabolist projects as Kikutake's cylindrical towers. The useof ready-made and popular images was a deliberate assault on architec-ture as a conventionalized, 'upper-class' discipline—an invasion of'lowart' into architecture's hallowed precincts, especially those of theModern Movement itself. In their almost obsessive elaboration ofdetail, in the frank eclecticism of their imagery, and in their presenta-tion of projects from the outside, Archigram's drawings bear a certainresemblance to those of Sant'Elia's Citta Nuova (see pages 103-5). Butthere is a pervasive irony in the work that seems carefully designed toprevent the technological environment it conjures up from becomingtoo menacing [157].29

Homo LudensThe projects that fall within the second category of Megastructuralform are primarily concerned with the ability of cybernetic machines


157 ArchigramPlug-in City, 1964In this project eclectictypologies are interconnectedin an endless web-likestructure.

to make it possible for a built environment to be self-regulating, inother words to adapt to the changing desires of the human communi-ties that inhabit it. This idea is implicit in Archigram and Metabolism,but in the work of Cedric Price (1934-2004), Yona Friedman (b. 1923),Michael Webb (b. 1927), and Victor E. Nieuwenhuys, known asConstant (b. 1920), it becomes the central issue. For all these designers,the leading idea is that of'play'. According to Constant, speaking of hisNew Babylon (1957-70): 'The environment of Homo Ludens ('man atplay') has first of all to be flexible, changeable, making possible anychange of place or mood, any mode of behaviour/30


158 Yona Friedman

L'Urbanisme Spatiale,1960-2A seven-storey open structureof unconvincing lightness—here shown against thebackdrop of Manhattan—hovers above anuninterrupted ground levelreserved for transport andparks.

Cedric Price's Fun Palace (1961)—commissioned by the impresarioJoan Littlewood and designed in collaboration with the structuralengineer Frank Newby and the cybernetics expert Gordon Pask—wasaborted due to lack of funds, but only after most of the technical detailshad been prepared. Michael Webb's Sin Centre (1957-62) representsthe seductive image of an organic structure in a state of pulsatingdesire. Yona Friedman, in his impressionistic drawings for TUrbanismeSpatiale (1960-62), proposed—with a complete lack of technicaldetail—a multi-storey metal space-frame suspended high above Parisin which 'the usable volumes occupy the voids of [the] infrastructureand their arrangement follows the will of the people' [158].31

Among Megastructuralists the work of Constant is unique in itsconscious connections with the early twentieth-century avant-gardes—Futurism, Constructivism, and De Stijl. A member of theCOBRA group of painters, Constant joined Guy Debord s Situation-ist International in I95/.32 It was in this context that he began the seriesof models and drawings depicting the city of New Babylon (the namewas suggested by Debord)—a series that he continued for another tenyears after his break with Debord in i96o.33 New Babylon sets out to

FROM LE CORBUSIER TO MEGASTRUCTURES: URBAN VISIONS 1930-65 22J

159 ConstantNew Babylon (1959-): viewof New Babylonian Sectors,1971Constant's representationsare less picturesque thanthose of Archigram orFriedman and give a more adhoc and moreuncompromising image of atotally mechanized spatialworld.

give architectural form to the Situationist concept of derive (drifting)and of the 'psycho-geographical' mapping of the city. Its main con-cepts can be traced back to a 1953 essay (published in 1958) entitledTormulary for a New UrbanisnY, by Lettrist International memberGilles Ivain (pseudonym for Ivan Chtchegloff ).34

Constant's city [143 (see page 208), 159] is based on a long-termprognosis of modern society. His writings predict a world in whichnature will have been totally superseded by technology, fixed commu-nities by nomadic flows, work by leisure. In his city, production andmechanical transportation (which are said to have destroyed social lifein existing cities) occur at ground level, while all social life, now free todevelop without any impediment, takes place within a vast structureraised onpi/otis. This structure, which forms a network that will even-tually cover the entire globe, is a continuous multi-storey loft spacecontaining all living and social functions, which will be continuouslyrebuilt by the population, aided by cybernetic machines. The perma-nent structure, like that of Le Corbusier's Algiers viaduct, is a series offixed floorplates constituting the 'ground levels' of the city (unlikeCedric Price's Fun Palace where the floors are mobile). The populationwill migrate at will from one part of the city to another and communi-ties will continually form and reform. Since work has been abolished,life will be spent in creative social interaction and imaginative play inan environment that has been completely aestheticized. Contrary toConstant's avowed intentions, the dominant impression of this aes-thetic Utopia is one of boredom and claustrophobia. It is like anendless shopping mall without exit signs. Moreover, while social life isin a state of constant agitation, economics and government seem, like


industrial production, to have vanished into a state of automatedperfection. It pictures a lobotomized world from which power andconflict have been eradicated.

Whether Megastructures emphasize a relatively fixed infrastruc-ture or its self-regulating, responsive infill, they are all predicated on adominant idea—that of the city as an open web or network, the con-tents of which can develop according to an internal dynamic. Incontrast to the traditional Cartesian schema promoted by the AthensCharter, according to which the city consists of a closed hierarchy ofdiscrete parts controlled by a centre, the Megastructural city is pre-sented as an indivisible, organic, self-regulating whole. Problems seemto arise when this abstract concept is hypostasized and given form as anarchitectural image. The idea immediately takes on the clothing of aUtopia or a dystopia, depending on whether the hidden mechanism ofthe system is read as benign or sinister. It is all too easy to seeConstant’s New Babylon, for example, as an allegory for a post-indus-trial, capitalist world, in which an invisible network, though able tomaintain and reproduce itself efficiently, is no longer guided by anyrational telos.


160 Mies van der RoheSeagram Building, 1954–8,New York

The defining moment for the introduction of the Modern Movementinto America is usually seen to have been the exhibition at the NewYork Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) of 1932 and the accompanyingbook, The International Style, by Philip Johnson and Henry RussellHitchcock. This book presented the Modern Movement as an inci-dent in the evolution of style, and downplayed its progressive socialcontent. The explanation for this can probably be found in the differ-ent cultural and political conditions prevailing in America and Europeat the time.

In Europe, the period between 1910 and 1930 was one of unprece-dented social and cultural upheaval. Sweeping social reforms werebeing initiated by liberal governments, particularly in the realm ofpublic housing. At the same time there was a powerful avant-gardemovement in all the arts supported by a small but influential minorityof the cultural elite. During the same period in America this paral-lelism between socially progressive ideas and the artistic avant-gardewas largely lacking. Garden City settlements of the 1920s and 1930s,like Sunnyside Gardens in New York, Radburn in New Jersey, andGreenbelt near Washington, DC, all by Clarence Stein and HenryWright, were still basically within the Arts and Crafts tradition.Projects derived from the 1920s European avant-garde, such asStonorov and Kastner’s Carl Mackley Houses in Philadelphia, wererare. Given the lack of commonly perceived connection between theavant-garde and social reform it is hardly surprising that Hitchcockand Johnson should have emphasized the purely stylistic aspects of theModern Movement. Yet there were other voices; for example, in paral-lel with the ‘International Style’ exhibit, MoMA mounted anexhibition of social housing curated by the architectural critic LewisMumford (1895–1990) and his assistant Catherine Bauer, whichincluded examples of the Arts and Crafts movement and NeueSachlichkeit in Germany.

Lewis Mumford’s writings in the 1920s still carried the imprint ofWilliam Morris’s rejection of modern technology. But towards the endof the decade he came increasingly under the influence of the optimisticevolutionism of the Scottish urbanist Patrick Geddes. According to

231

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Pax Americana:Architecture inAmerica 1945–65

Geddes, the present ‘paleotechnic’ phase in civilization would give wayto a ‘neotechnic’ phase in which electricity would succeed coal as asource of power, and biological principles would replace mechanisticones. After visiting the new housing in Weimar Germany in 1932,Mumford became convinced that such a neotechnic phase was in themaking. His books Technics and Civilization (1934) and The Culture ofCities (1938) contained the essence of his new philosophy.1

Mumford’s partner on the German tour was Catherine Bauer—ayoung writer whose visit to Ernst May’s New Frankfurt two yearsearlier had, in her own words, transformed her ‘from an aesthete into ahousing reformer’. After turning the research material collected on theGerman tour into a book, Modern Housing, she became acknowledgedas the foremost American expert on social housing. Bauer realized(unlike Mumford) that the success of social housing in Americadepended on grass-roots political action. In 1934, she became directorof the Philadelphia Labor Housing Conference, founded by the archi-tect Oskar Stonorov and John Edelman of the Hosiery WorkersUnion, whose purpose—ultimately abortive—was to create a labour-sponsored housing cooperative.

Mumford and Bauer’s enthusiasm for the German housing move-ment must be seen against the background of the general openness toEuropean social ideas that characterized the New Deal, as theRoosevelt administration searched for ways to alleviate the effects ofthe Depression. But the flow of ideas across the Atlantic in the inter-war period was not only from east to west. Especially during the early1920s, European reformers, both in Western Europe and in SovietRussia, envious of the high living standards of American workers,sought to harness American ideas to their various programmes ofreconstruction and reform. American technology and productionmanagement were emulated by European industry and became impor-tant early points of reference for the Modern Movement.2

After the Second World War the situation changed radically.America emerged from the war as the dominant power and as the cred-itor of an impoverished and ruined Europe. Though some of thewelfare programmes inaugurated by the New Deal remained intact,there was now unbounded confidence in American capitalism.Modern architecture became accepted worldwide by the architecturalprofession, but it was pursued under totally different political condi-tions in America and Europe. In the welfare state economies ofpost-war Europe modern architecture, whether orthodox or revision-ist, became the norm for public projects. Within this ethos architects,working either in government or private offices, began to study prob-lems of large-scale architectural production. In England in the late1940s, for example, Hertfordshire County Council implemented aschool programme based on a modular system of prefabrication.3 In

232 pax americana: architecture in america 1945‒65

Europe as a whole the many points of connection between modernarchitecture and the welfare state encouraged the experimental work ofTeam X and the Megastructuralist movements (see pages 217 and 223).

During the same period in America the most vital developments inmodern architecture were in the private sector. Even public projectswere financed by private agencies (albeit with federal or state help) andthis tended to inhibit, though it did not altogether eliminate, thedevelopment of an ideology-driven Modernism. Precisely because ofthe different conditions of architectural production in America andEurope, however, the mutual influence was still strong. In Europe thisinfluence was chiefly felt in two areas: the first, technology, reinforcedthe tradition of Modernist rationalism; the second, popular andrapidly changing cultural forms, ran counter to it.

In this chapter three major themes will be examined: firstly, theindividual house—in particular, the Case Study House Program; sec-ondly, corporate office building; and thirdly, critiques of Modernistrationalism, the pressures of consumerism, and the search for an archi-tecture of public symbolism.

The Case Study House ProgramIn the 1920s in Western Europe, the individual house had played animportant role in the birth of the Modern Movement. But in the twodecades after the Second World War, European domestic building waslargely confined to government housing programmes, which consistedmostly of high-rise apartments or row houses in the cities or the newtowns. In America, by contrast, most new housing took the form oflarge suburban settlements, made necessary by the accelerated migra-tion of white middle-class families from the cities to the outer suburbsand carried out by private developers.4 At the same time there was alarge market in one-off family houses, extending from the modest andpre-designed to the lavish and purpose-designed.

The stylistic tendencies within the housing market were the resultof a complex interplay between various interested parties, includingthe loan agencies, the building industry, and professional and culturalpressure groups. Museums such as the Museum of Modern Art inNew York and progressive journals such as Architectural Record tried topopularize modern house design, but with only modest success. In 1951Architectural Record, commenting on a House of Ideas sponsored by thejournal House and Garden, described it as a fusion of the ‘crisp, cleanlines of the International Style and the rambling openness of theRanch House Style’. The design typified a ‘no-nonsense’ Modernismunencumbered by theory which gained some popularity in the UnitedStates in the 1950s.5

In this encounter between Modernism and the housing market, the

pax americana: architecture in america 1945‒65 233

example of southern California played a crucial role. Ever since theearly years of the twentieth century, with such buildings as the GambleHouse by Greene and Greene (1907–8) and Dodge House by IrvingGill (1914–16), Los Angeles had shown itself to be receptive to an inno-vative domestic architecture. This tradition had been continued in the1920s with the Los Angeles houses of Frank Lloyd Wright and thework of Austrian immigrants Rudolph Schindler (1887–1953) andRichard Neutra (1892–1970)—for example, the justly admired housesthat each of them built for Dr Phillip Lovell (1923–5 and 1927–9respectively).

It was in Los Angeles after the Second World War that a vigorousattempt was made to influence the more expensive end of the post-warhouse market in the direction of modern architecture: the Case StudyHouse Program. This was initiated by John Entenza, an amateur ofmodern art and architecture who became owner–editor of the maga-zine Arts and Architecture in 1938, turning it into a mouthpiece of theavant-garde. In the July issue of 1944 Entenza—together with photog-rapher and graphic artist Herbert Matter and architects and designersRay and Charles Eames (1912–88 and 1907–78), Eero Saarinen(1910–61), and Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983)—published amanifesto calling for the application of wartime technology to thepost-war housing problem. The montages by Herbert Matterannouncing the manifesto showed a familiarity with Futurist andConstructivist graphics, but they placed a new emphasis on theanalogy between machines, the human nervous system, and molecularstructures. The manifesto recast Bauhaus and Corbusian ideology interms of post-war American technology. In defining the principles onwhich the post-war house should be based, it declared:

The house is an instrument of service. Degrees of service are real and can bemeasured. They are not dependent on taste. The house should not assert itselfby its architectural design. In fact, the better integrated the services of thehouse become, the less one is apt to be conscious of the physical way in whichit has been done. The kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, utilities, and storage willprofit most by an industrialized system of prefabrication. In the living–recre-ational areas variation becomes a valid personal preference. A designer mustknow what the house must supply to meet the physiological and psychologicalneeds of the members of the family.6

Optimistic and positivistic in tone, the manifesto promoted the beliefthat an art based on psychological laws and an architecture based onscientific method would lead to a unified culture in tune with themodern age. The aim of the manifesto was not social revolution but arevolution in aesthetics, starting with the enlightened bourgeoisie andfiltering down to the masses. Nonetheless, the manifesto had a moraland social as well as an aesthetic agenda: the particular aesthetic it pro-


moted was one of transparency and ‘authenticity’, inseparable, it wasthought, from the ideals of a rational and just social order.Prefabrication techniques, combining standardization and choice,would make the new aesthetic principles available to everyone. Whereit differed from the European Modern Movement and from socialreformers like Lewis Mumford and Catherine Bauer was in itsassumption that the uniform culture it envisaged was compatible witha market-based capitalism.

To carry out this ambitious agenda Entenza commissioned oradopted a series of suburban houses in southern California byModernist architects, including among others William Wurster(1895–1973), Ralph Rapson (b. 1914), and Richard Neutra, in order tobuild up a ‘case study’ of the new domestic architecture. In spite of theirdifferences these houses had many features in common, not all ofwhich were derived from the theory presented in the manifesto. Theywere, for a start, nearly all of one storey with flat roofs. The plans wereopen and informal but tended to be bi-nuclear, the living rooms andbedrooms being remote from each other. The inside was opened up tothe outside by means of large areas of glazing. A tendency towards pic-turesque dispersal was counteracted by the economic need for cubicsimplicity. Nearly all the houses had unrendered brick fireplaces—areassuring reference to the pre-industrial past. The layouts reflected asomewhat ritualized suburban life style—non-rational and conformistrather than rational and free as the theory claimed. Despite the use offorms connoting prefabrication and mechanization most of the houseswere built of blockwork with wood framing, and the flexibility of theplans owed as much to traditional American building techniques asthey did to new technology and materials.

Around 1950, the Case Study houses underwent a marked change,which first becomes noticeable in those by Raphael Soriano (1907–88),Craig Ellwood (1922–92), and Pierre Koenig (b. 1925) [161]. In thesehouses there was a new concentration on modular construction andprefabrication. The houses were thought of more as assembled systemsthan as ‘designs’ in the traditional sense. It became possible to talk of anarchitecture of steel and glass. Nearly all the houses now had steelframes and the structure and method of assembly became clearlyvisible while the plans became simpler and less picturesque. DiscussingCraig Ellwood’s House 17 of 1954–5, the Italian journal Domus wrote:‘In fact, we do not find here innovations in the scheme of composition,in the treatment of space, structure or materials, but solutions ofdetails, perfections of equipment and materials, which make thisarchitecture more profound and more concrete.’7

Two Case Study houses built between 1945 and 1949 stand some-what apart from the other houses of the earlier phase, though theyforeshadow the second phase in many ways: Case Study House 9, built


161 Pierre Koenig

Case Study House 21,1958,Los AngelesThis house, with itspanoramic view, unites insideand outside space, privatelife and the infinite-sublime.Although largelyprefabricated, it is highlysite-specific.

for Jophn Entenza, designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen,and House 8 designed by Charles Eames and his wife Ray for theirown use.8 The two houses shared the same site in Pacific Palisades.Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen had met in 1937 when Eames wason a fellowship at Cranbrook Academy of Art, of which Eero's fatherEliel was both designer and director. During the early 19408 theyfrequently collaborated, particularly in the design of moulded ply-wood furniture, in which Eames was an important pioneer. TheEntenza House is a single-storey volume compressed within a squareperimeter. Externally the house is enigmatically neutral; its qualitieslie entirely in its interior, ingeniously calibrated to the needs of abachelor-aesthete.

The Eames House is altogether more remarkable [162]. It is almostunique among case study houses in being organized on two storeys. Itconsists of a steel and glass cage with one long side built close upagainst a steep embankment and the other sides open to the undulat-ing, eucalyptus-strewn site. Its proportions are roughly those of LeCorbusier s Maison Citrohan—both have a double-height living roomat one end overlooked by a bedroom balcony—but in relation to theMaison Citrohan the Eames House is rotated through 90 degrees andthe blank flank wall has become a front. Instead of being monolithic,

236 PAX AMERICANA: ARCHITECTURE IN AMERICA 1945-65

162 Charles and Ray EamesCase Study House 8,1945–9, Pacific PalisadesThis house is assembled fromstandard industrial elementsand is non-site-specific. Itslight, nomadic quality relatesit more to the ideas of LeCorbusier, Ginsburg, orBuckminster Fuller, than tothe typical ground-hungryAmerican house of theperiod.

like Le Corbusier’s house, it is additive. Its slender steel frame isabsorbed into the thickness of the skin. The anonymous grid of stan-dard factory glazing, slightly reminiscent of the screen walls of atraditional Japanese house, conceals an interior of cluttered, sensuous,fetishistic objects—a far cry from the chilly rituals of the other CaseStudy houses. There is no doubt that the Eames House looks back tothe Arts and Crafts tradition in certain ways. Its brilliance lies in thefact that it achieves its effects by the use of as-found factory compo-nents and without sentimentality.

The corporate office buildingPerhaps the greatest single achievement of American architecture afterthe Second World War was the establishment of the modern corporateoffice building as a type, imitated all over the world. Skidmore,Owings, and Merrill (SOM) were the leaders of this development.Founded in Chicago in 1933 by Nathaniel Owings (1903–84) and LouisSkidmore (1897–1962), the firm came to prominence during the warwith the commission to build the city of Oak Ridge in Tennessee forthe Manhattan Project for the development of the atomic bomb. Afterthe war, the firm grew into a huge multi-partner organization with


163 Skidmore, Owings, andMerrillLever House, 1951–2, NewYorkThis was the first of SOM’sskyscraper office blocks. Itscurtain wall was widelyimitated throughout theworld.

offices in Chicago and New York and later in San Francisco andPortland, Oregon.

The first high-rise office building by SOM was Lever House inNew York (1951–2) [163]. This was one of four American buildingswhich were the first to realize Mies van der Rohe’s and Le Corbusier’spre-war visions of the glass skyscraper. The other three were: theEquitable Life Assurance Building in Portland, Oregon (1944–7) byPietro Belluschi (1899–1994); the United Nations Secretariat in NewYork (1947–50) by Wallace Harrison (1895–1981) with Le Corbusier asconsultant; and Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Chicago (1948–51) byMies van der Rohe.9 To this list should be added the pre-war Ministryof Education building in Rio de Janeiro (1936–45) by a team includingLúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, with Le Corbusier as consultant(see page 216).

In its site organization Lever House is similar to, and probablyderived from, the Rio building.10 It was the first building in Manhattanto be set back from the plot boundary, though unlike the Rio buildingthe tower rises up from a three-storey perimeter courtyard block onpilotis. But in its use of a uniform curtain wall on all surfaces it followeda Miesian rather than a Corbusian prototype. From 1952, indeed, Miesbecame the dominant influence on SOM. Due to the firm’s decentral-ized office organization and its somewhat empirical approach todesign, its work showed considerable variation in detail, but these vari-ations occurred within a strict set of functional parameters: maximumflexibility of spatial planning; maximum standardization of parts andmodular coordination of all systems;11 air conditioning; fully glazedand sealed curtain walls; all-day artificial lighting; and deep officespace.

The firm of SOM was a new phenomenon in the history ofModernism. For the first time the anonymity that had been aimed atby the rationalist wing of the Modern Movement appeared to havebeen achieved. Thanks to technical and professional efficiency com-bined with a simple and consistent aesthetic, SOM were able to marrythe ambitions of Modernist rationalism with those of advanced capi-talism and corporate bureaucracy [164, 165]. In their work modernarchitecture—or at least a convincing version of it—became normal-ized within the political structures of the Cold War and the‘military–industrial complex’.

SOM may have been unique in its size and in the anonymity of itsorganization but it was part of a general post-war expansion of corpo-rate office building in which many architects took part. Among thesethe work of Eero Saarinen is of particular interest. Eero was the partnerof his father Eliel until the latter’s death in 1950, and he had inheritedfrom his father a belief in the high mission of the individual creativearchitect. He also adhered to the Beaux-Arts maxim that a building’s


form should express its character. This led him, in the design of theGeneral Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan (1948–56)[166], which he took over on the death of his father, to develop anarchitecture that embraced and promoted GM’s technical, stylistic,and corporate ideas. The design was highly inventive—for example, inits adaptation of the neoprene gasket from car to building design, in the‘luminous ceiling’ of the dome of the sales hall, and in its use of bright,glazed-tile colour-coding on the gable walls of each department build-ing. At the level of organization, the design both facilitated andrepresented GM’s corporate policy of decentralized control and flexi-bility. A universal grid of 5 feet allowed for interchangeability of partsand flexibility of planning, while on the façades the module wasendlessly repeated in the window mullions at the expense of anyexpression of structure. The office campus, grouped round an artificiallake, was designed to be seen from a moving car. Thus, a predispositiontowards expressive functionalism inherited from his father’s Jugendstil

164 Skidmore, Owings, andMerrillUS Air Force Academy,1954–62, Colorado SpringsThis complex shows theaptness of an ‘architecturewithout rhetoric’ for therhetorical representation ofpower.


166 Eero SaarinenGeneral Motors TechnicalCenter, 1948–56, Warren,MichiganThe somewhat Expressionistquality of Eliel Saarinen’soriginal design, was ironedout to produce a buildinggeared towardsdecentralization andflexibility. The identity of thevarious departments wasestablished by colour-coding.

165 Skidmore, Owings, andMerrillUnion Carbide Building,1957–60, New YorkIn SOM’s interiors, modularcoordination is both themeans and the meaning ofthe corporate office.


background ironically led Saarinen to produce a copybook design ofrationalist anonymity.12

Mies van der Rohe in AmericaThe American work of Mies van der Rohe occupies a position that isboth central and peripheral to the development of the corporate officebuilding: central in the sense that Mies’s designs for the Illinois Insti-tute of Technology in Chicago (1940–56) and Lake Shore DriveApartments provided the basic formal syntax for the corporate build-ings of SOM and Saarinen; peripheral in the sense that Miesmaintained a certain detachment from the immediate needs of hisclients. Mies’s first scheme for the IIT campus was classical with twoidentical, symmetrically placed auditoria [167], continuing the compo-sitional characteristics of his German work—for instance, the SilkIndustry Offices in Krefeld of 1937. When it was discovered that theexisting road grid could not be altered, Mies changed the layout,turning an articulated composition into an assemblage of rectangularpavilions in a way that conformed to the abstract conditions of theAmerican grid [168]. All Mies’s energy went into discovering and per-fecting the types corresponding to what he saw as the ‘will of the epoch’,and once he had arrived at a typical solution he simply repeated it.Whereas in the work of SOM the same rational schema would oftenvary in detail from project to project, for Mies there was no differencebetween the personal solution and the type. A case in point is his use of

167 Mies van der RohePreliminary scheme, IllinoisInstitute of Technology,1939, ChicagoThis layout creates a closedhierarchy. In the builtscheme all the buildings arereduced to rectangularpavilions with only a minimalgesture towards hierarchicalorder. This momentoussurrender to the logic of theAmerican street grid set thetone for all Mies’ssubsequent work.


168 Mies van der RoheAlumni Hall, Illinois Instituteof Technology, 1945–6The abstract yet neoclassicalseverity of Mies’s IITpavilions had an enormousinfluence on Americanarchitecture in the 1950s,particularly that of thecorporate office block and thework of SOM and EeroSaarinen.

I-beams in his curtain wall façades. First adopted in Lake Shore DriveApartments, these elements—which among other functions providestiffening for the window sections—read ambiguously as both mullionsand columns, recalling the equally ambiguous vertical elements of Sul-livan’s Wainwright Building (see page 243) and Eliel Saarinen’s ChicagoTribune offices. Mies’s I-beam is an as-found element with definitestructural connotations, but at the same time it is explicitly decorative,being welded to the surface of a pre-existent structure [160 (see page230), 169, 170]. Mies claimed to be creating an anonymous vernacularand repudiated Le Corbusier’s ‘individualism’,13 but his minimal formsare still rhetorical and speak of the remnants of a high art tradition evenas they reject any reconciliation between history and modernity.

CountercurrentsWe must now look at some of the countercurrents that began to makethemselves felt in the 1950s. These were active at very different levels


169 Mies van der Rohe (left)Seagram Building, 1954–8,New YorkThe I-beam mullions createan ornamental surface that isquasi-structural—atreatment of the office façadethat goes back to Sullivan’sWainwright Building. Notethe illuminated ceiling grid,which extends the façademodule into the body of thebuilding.

170 Mies van der Rohe(above)Seagram Building, 1954–8,New YorkIn this detail of the curtainwall the supplementary,ornamental nature of the I-beam mullion is clear.

and often pulled in opposite directions. Some were broad analyses ofAmerican society carried out by academic sociologists or journalists;others were attempts by designers or architects to correct what theysaw as the weaknesses of Modernist artistic and architectural theory.

The critique of corporatismMies’s carefully worked out idealist philosophy and his disdain for thetrivia of everyday life in favour of a purified expression of the Zeitgeistcoincided exactly with the worldly demands of corporate discipline—adiscipline that was accepted by SOM uncritically and on its own terms.It was precisely this corporate discipline that was attacked by writerslike David Riesman (The Lonely Crowd, 1950) and William H. Whyte(The Organisation Man, 1956), who saw the corporation as a dehuman-ized collective producing a new type of ‘other-directed’ character,nervously conforming to the opinions of (corporate) peers. These crit-icisms were markedly different from those of late-nineteenth-centuryGerman sociologists like Georg Simmel. Whereas for Simmel indi-vidualism (the blasé type) was a defensive mechanism developed todeal with the loss of community in an economy based on money, for


Reisman and Whyte individualism was a primary American virtue,threatened by corporate conformism.

The critique of corporatism was also mounted on a more politicallevel. C. Wright Mills (The Power Elite, 1956) saw the signs of a new,insidious kind of totalitarianism in the very dispersal of power that wasthe essence of corporate capitalism—evident in the multiple linksbetween the corporations, the military, and government. Mills’s pes-simism was not shared, however, by fellow sociologist Talcott Parsons,for whom the web-like structure of modern political power was symp-tomatic of a well-performing, self-regulating social system thatnecessarily resulted in the sacrifice of the individual to the organicwhole (see Systems theory, page 220).

Beyond rationalism: desire and communityThe Case Study houses and the corporate architecture of SOM can beseen to have represented a sort of ideal moment when post-war politi-cal and technical optimism in America coincided with the culturalphilosophy of a normative Modernist architecture. But there werecommercial and industrial currents that threatened this ideology. Achallenge to the cultural assumptions of mainstream Modernism hadalready been laid down in the late 1920s when the General MotorsCorporation, breaking with the Fordist tradition, adapted their pro-duction cycle to allow for different rates of obsolescence: a slow one forthe chassis, following the laws of technical evolution; a fast one for thebody, following those of fashion.14

The introduction of ‘styling’ into the automobile industry set thepace for a whole generation of American industrial designers likeNorman Bel Geddes, Raymond Loewy, and Henry Dreyfus, whosought to reconcile the Bauhaus principles of ‘good design’ with thedemands of the market. Art theorist and teacher Georgy Kepes recom-mended applying the principles of Gestalt psychology to advertising tocounteract the formlessness of modern life.15 Ernst Dichter in his bookThe Strategy of Desire (1960), spoke of the dual responsibility of thedesigner to understand the sociology and psychology of the public, andto uphold public taste.16 However, once the market had been acceptedas a player in the culture of modernity it was obvious that theWerkbund–Bauhaus ideal of universal norms of taste for the wholedesign field, from the commodity to the building, could not be sus-tained. This was abundantly clear to British Pop Artists such asRichard Hamilton who assimilated advertising to high art, makingironic use of the unconscious drives that champions of the Bauhaustradition like Kepes sought to sublimate.

At the architectural end of the spectrum, there were attempts toreintroduce into architecture the monumentality outlawed by main-


171 Eero SaarinenTWA Terminal, JFK Airport,1956–62, New YorkIn his later work Saarinenbecame increasinglyExpressionist in hisapproach, attempting tocapture the essential‘character’ of each project.

stream rationalism. The corporate work of SOM and Eero Saarinenwas clearly rationalist in spirit, yet this did not prevent them introduc-ing ‘symbolic’ buildings at the appropriate moment, as in SOM’sExpressionist chapel for the US Air Force Academy at ColoradoSprings (1954–62). Indeed Saarinen became increasingly obsessed withthe expression of the ‘character’ of each building. This can be seen inhis auditorium and chapel at MIT (1950–5), in the dormitories at YaleUniversity (1958–62), and in the TWA terminal at Idlewild (now JFK)Airport (1956–62) [171].

In the late 1950s many Modernist architects turned to neo-Palladianism, including TAC (Gropius’s firm), Philip Johnson, JohnJohansen, Edward Durrell Stone [172], and Minoru Yamasaki. Thisoften took the form of symmetrical plans and a ‘Pompeian’17 reading of


172 Edward Durrell StoneUS Embassy, 1954, NewDelhi, IndiaThis work is representative ofAmerican neoclassicism ofthe 1950s.

Modernist lightness and transparency—as in the many new Americanembassies that were springing up at that time in the capital cities ofEurope and Asia.

Louis KahnIn the work of Louis Kahn (1901–74) the critique of mainstreamModernism was both more subtle and more radical than that of thearchitects so far mentioned. Nonetheless, Kahn’s work can best beapproached in the context of the New Monumentality movement pro-moted by Sigfried Giedion, Josep Lluis Sert, and Kahn’s mentor,George Howe.18 From his early years as an architect Kahn was activelyinvolved in the housing reform movement and spent the years from1940 to 1947 as the chief designer in successive partnerships withGeorge Howe and Oskar Stonorov, working on government housingprojects. He was deeply sympathetic to the communitarian ideas ofwriters like Lewis Mumford, Paul and Percival Goodman, andHannah Arendt, and shared their belief in the need for a civic architec-

173 Louis KahnAdler House, 1954–5,PhiladelphiaThe plan shows how thehouse is broken down intofive identical structuralelements accommodatingdifferent functions. Thecomposition is free,contiguities beingdetermined by circulationrequirements.


174 Louis Kahn

Jewish Community Center,1954-9, TrentonHere the structural aediculesare organized on a binary grid.There are two kinds of space:primary (served) andsecondary (servant).Partitions may occur only ongrid lines and are optional,depending on distributionrequirements. For extra-largespaces columns are omittedbut the roof pattern remainsconstant.

ture that would inspire people with a sense of common purpose anddemocratic participation.

A few years after he started practising on his own in 1947, Kahn swork began to depart radically from the received Modernist tradition.In his new work there seems to have been a fusion of the ideas ofViollet-le-Duc and those of neoclassicism (traceable, in particular, tothe writings of the early-nineteenth-century theoretician Quatremerede Quincy), both available to Kahn through the Beaux-Arts traditionin which he was formed. On the one hand he was drawn to Viollet'sstructural rationalism. On the other hand he believed in the concept ofunchanging forms or types.19

For Kahn, a convergence between the two traditions was suggestedby the Platonic geometries found in nature, as demonstrated in thebooks of Ernst Haeckel and D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.20 Asimilar interest in these geometries was shown by Buckminster Fuller,Robert Le Ricolais (1897-1977), and Konrad Wachsmann (1901-80),

PAX AMERICANA: ARCHITECTURE IN AMERICA 1945-65 249

whose polyhedral space-frame structures strongly influenced Kahn’sarchitecture in the early 1950s (Kahn referred to space-frames as‘hollow stones’).

Kahn’s critique of Modernism started with a rejection of the ‘freeplan’. He believed that in uncoupling form from structure the free planas variously interpreted by Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier hadopened up a void that could only be filled by subjective intuition. ‘Mies’ssensitivities’, he said, ‘react to imposed structural order with little inspi-ration . . . Le Corbusier . . . passes through order impatiently andhurries to form’.21 Kahn’s breakthrough to a different ordering principlecame with his Adler and DeVore house projects (1954–5) [173] and theTrenton Bath House (1957), where the aggregation of identical ‘rooms’reduced architecture to its most primitive unit of meaning. In subse-quent projects these units were organized in a number of ways: asclose-packed agglomerations, as strings, as random clusters, or as smallspaces grouped round a central space. The significant element is always

175 Louis KahnRichards Medical ResearchLaboratories, University ofPennsylvania, 1957–65,PhiladelphiaHere the served–servantprinciple is adapted to amulti-storey building. Itproved difficult to reconcilethe demanding technicalrequirements of thelaboratories with Kahn’sformal system.


176 Louis KahnPlan, First Unitarian Church,1961, Rochester, New YorkIn this building the secondaryrooms are clusteredaccording to empirical needsaround the church hall. Kahnavoids strict classicalsymmetry.

the room-space itself. As Kahn expressed it: ‘Space made by a domeand then divided by walls is not the same space . . . a room should be aconstructed entity or an ordered segment of a construction system.’22

Kahn’s double allegiance to structural organicism and classicism—to a whole that has not yet appeared and a whole that has beenlost—cuts across this generalized schema. The unbuilt project for aJewish Community Center at Trenton (1954–9) [174] exhibits boththese tendencies. A new arbitrary relation between form and functionappears. Architectural forms no longer correspond to immutablecausal relationships as they are supposed to do in functionalism. Abinary grid is set up in which the only fixed hierarchy is that betweenpositive (served) and negative (servant) spaces. Apart from this, anycombination of functions can be inserted.

In the adaptation of an architectural programme to this a priorisystem a new tension arises between Platonic and circumstantialorders.23 In the Richards Medical Research Laboratories at the Uni-versity of Pennsylvania (1957–65) [175] Kahn had difficulty inreconciling a highly technical programme to the system.24 In the SalkInstitute for Biological Sciences in La Jolla (1959–65) he solved theproblem by relegating the bulk of the programme to two enormous,flexible sheds and restricting symbolic expression to fixed administra-tive pavilions facing the plaza (there is an analogy here to the exhibitionpavilions in the Chicago World’s Fair).

At the other extreme lie projects like the First Unitarian Church inRochester (1961) [176] and the National Assembly Building at Dhaka,


Bangladesh (1962–83) [177, 178],25 where secondary spaces are groupedround a central volume, as in Byzantine and centralized Renaissancechurches. In the final version of the Rochester building, the symmetryis distorted by circumstantial, ‘secular’ pressures. But in the DhakaAssembly the geometrical expression of unity is unremitting; nothingcircumstantial disturbs the rigidly hieratic order. It is clear that forKahn the Dhaka Assembly had taken on strong religious connotations.We no longer find the connection between democratic social practicesand symbolic forms that were characteristic of his early civic designs.

From the very outset of the Modern Movement a fissure had openedup between two dominant and opposed concepts—organic expression

177 Louis KahnNational Assembly Building,1962–83, DhakaThe Platonic volumes arepunctured by geometricalopenings that avoid stylisticreference. The building ismonumental and hermetic,suggesting a religious ratherthan secular purpose.


178 Louis KahnNational Assembly Building,1962–83, DhakaThe plan shows how theservant spaces aresymmetrically grouped roundthe assembly chamber.

on the one hand and the normative and standardized on the other.Adolf Behne’s distinction between ‘functionalism’ and ‘rationalism’,Le Corbusier’s concept of the free plan, and the dislocation in Mies vander Rohe’s American phase between the regular building envelope andits variable content, were merely particular, working formulations of amore general problem of disjunction.

Louis Kahn, whether we see his work as derived from Viollet-le-Duc or the classical tradition, started from the same problem, butmoved in a different direction. This direction was being explored at thesame time by Team X, and had been adumbrated by Le Corbusier inhis accentuation of each living cell in the Unité d’Habitation and otherpost-war projects. For Kahn—going much further than Le Corbusierin this direction—architecture only took on meaning when a unit ofstructure coincided with a unit of habitable space. This made the freeplan inoperative and gave rise to a new problem: instead of being free to


develop independently, as they were according to the logic of the freeplan, ideal and circumstantial orders were now locked in a dialectic,directing attention to the conflict between transcendent architecturalvalues and the contingencies of the modern economy.

Louis Kahn belonged firmly to the Modernist tradition in at leastone respect: he wanted to create an architecture that would embody anew politico-moral order. In his attempt to achieve this he arrived at asurprising new formulation of an old problem—how to achieve anarchitecture that would be absolutely new but at the same time wouldreaffirm timeless architectural truths.

The effect of this effort was to bring to a head and accelerate theexisting crisis within the Modern Movement. Rational functionalismhad seemed to take on a new lease of life in post-war America, but bythe 1960s its principles seemed incapable of dealing with the web-likecomplexities of late capitalism. The Utopian promise of a new, unified,and universal architecture was becoming increasingly implausible. Ifthere could still be said to be a ‘spirit of the epoch’, a Zeitgeist, it wasnow the self-contradictory one of pluralism. Modernism was tosurvive, but only after abandoning its totalizing claims and by a processof continual self-cancellation. Paradoxically, the work of LouisKahn—anchored as it was in a belief in a transcendent order—was oneof the chief propelling agents in this emerging regime of uncertainty.


Notes

Chapter 1. Art Nouveau 1890-19101. Debora L. Silverman,^r/Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle France:Politics, Psychology and Style (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989),172-85.2. Fra^ois Loyer, 'France: Viollet-le-Duc to Tony Gamier', inFrank Russell (ed.), ArtNouveau Architecture (London, 1979), 103.3. For example, Eugenia W. Herbert, The Artist and SocialReform: France and Belgium, 1885-/#p#(New Haven, 1961), 74-8;H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society: the Reorientation ofEuropean Social Thought 1890-1930 (New York, 1961,1977),33-66; David Lindenfeld, The Transformation ofPositivism:Alexis Meinong and European Thought 1880-1920 (Berkeley andLos Angeles, 1980), 7-8.4. Herbert, The Artist and Social Reform, 75.5. Ibid., 77.6. Jean-Paul Bouillon, Art Nouveau 1870-1914 (New York, 1985),11-31.7. Ibid., 26.8. Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper: in Search ofArchitecture (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), 139-52.9. Bouillon, Art Nouveau 1870-1914,223.10. See Amy Fumiko Ogato, Cottages and Crafts in Fin-de-SiecleBelgium (PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1996).n. Maurice Culot, 'Belgium, Red Steel and Blue Aesthetic', inRussell, Art Nouveau Architecture, 79,96.12. Victor Horta, quoted in Culot, ibid., 99.13. Carl Friedrich von Rumohr, 1785-1843.14. Richard Padovan, 'Holland', in Russell, Art NouveauArchitecture, 138.15. Luis Domenech i Montaner, quoted in Timothy Benton,'Spain: Modernismo in Catalonia', in Russell, Art NouveauArchitecture, 56.16. The catenary had already been studied in France andEngland in the late eighteenth century. In Germany, HeinrichHubsch (1795-1863) proposed the catenary as a method ofdetermining the forces in vaulted buildings; Georg Germann,The Gothic Revival in Europe and Britain: Sources, Influences andIdeas (London, 1972), 175-6.17. Alois Riegl, Die Spatromanische Kunstindustrie (Vienna,1901), trans. R. Wmkes, Late Roman Art Industry (Rome, 1985),and Stiljragen (Berlin, 1893), trans. Problems of Style:Foundations of a History ofOrnament (Princeton, 1992).18. Akos Moravanszky, Competing Visions: Aesthetic Inventionand Social Imagination in Central European Architecture,1867-1918(Cambridge, Mass., 1998), chapter 4, Art Nouveau'.

19. Ibid., chapter 2, 'The City as Political Monument'.20. Max Eisler, quoted in Ezio Godoli, Austria', in Russell, ArtNouveau Architecture, 248.21. Nancy Troy, The Decorative Arts in Fin-de-Siecle France: ArtNouveau to Le Corbusier (New Haven, 1991), 52-102.

Chapter 2. Organicism versus Classicism: Chicago1890-19101. William H. Jordy, American Buildings and their Architects:Progressive and Academic Ideals at the Turn of the Century(Anchor Books, New York, 1972), chapter i, 'Masonry Blockand Metal Skeleton', 28-52.2. Michael). Lewis, 'Rundbogenstil', in Jane Turner (ed.), TheDictionary of Art (London, 1996).3. For an analysis of the formal evolution of the Chicago officefa9ade, see Heinrich Klotz, 'The Chicago Multi-storey as aDesign Problem', in John Zukovsky (ed.), Chicago Architecture(Art Institute of Chicago, 1987).4. Donald Drew Egbert, 'The Idea of Organic Expression inAmerican Architecture', in Stow Persons, EvolutionaryThought in America (New Haven, 1950), 336-97.5. H. W. Janson, Form Follows Function—or Does It?(Maasrssen, Netherlands, 1982).6. Dankmar Adler, quoted in Narciso Menocal, Architecture asNature: the Transcendentalist Idea of Louis Sullivan (Universityof Wisconsin, Madison, 1981), 43.7. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams: AnAutobiography (1918), quoted in Mario Manieri-Elia, 'Towardthe "Imperial City": Daniel Burnham and the CityBeautiful Movement', in Giorgio Ciucci, Francesco Dal Co,Mario Manieri-Elia and ManfredoTafuri, The American City:From the Civil War to the New Deaf (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 39.8. For a detailed account of the World s Fair see Manieri-Elia,ibid., 8-46.9. Fiske KimbaH, American Architecture (New York, 1928), 168;Manieri-Elia, ibid.10. For the Chicago plan and the City Beautiful movement seeManieri-Elia, ibid., 46-104.11. Charles W. Eliot, 'The New Plan of Chicago', quoted inManieri-Elia, ibid., 101.12. Francesco Dal Co, 'From Parks to the Region', TheAmerican City. 200-4. A similar theory favouring technologyover market capitalism was being propounded around 1900 inGermany by social theorists like Werner Sombart, see Fr.Schwartz, The Werkbund: Design and Mass Culture before the

255

First World War, 200 ff. This theory re-emerged during theWewimar Republic, see Jeffry Herf, Reactionary Modernism.

13. Gwendolyn Wright, Building the American Dream: Mora/ismand the Model Home (Chicago, 1980), 160; Manieri-Elia, ibid., 91.14. Gwendolyn Wright, Building the American Dream, chapter4, The Homelike World'; Manieri-Elia, ibid.15. H. Allen Brooks, The Prairie School: Frank Lloyd Wright andhis Mid-west Contemporaries (Toronto, 1972), 31,64,65.16. Inland Architect and News Record, vol. 37, no. 5, June 1901,34,35; Brooks, The Prairie School, 39,41; David Van Zanten,'Chicago in Architectural History', in Elizabeth BlairMacDougall(ed.), The Architectural Historian in America(National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1990).17. These were summarized as: Composition, Transition,Subordination, Repetition, and Symmetry; Arthur WesleyDow, Composition (New York, 1899), 17.18. Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age(London and New York, 1960), chapter 3.19. Frank Lloyd Wright, The Art and Craft of the Machine'(catalogue of the i4th Annual Exhibition of the Chicago Archi-tectural Club, 1901), reprinted in Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (ed.),Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings, vol. i (New York, 1992).20. Giorgio Ciucci, The City in Agrarian Ideology and FrankLloyd Wright: Origins and Development of Broad Acres', inThe American City, 304; Leonard K. Eaton, Two ChicagoArchitects and their Clients: Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard VanDoren Shaw (New York, 1969), demonstrates that, whileHoward van Doren Shaw's clients were members of theestablishment and connected with old money, Wright's weremostly'outsiders'. This would appear to be consistent with theirrespective architectural tastes.

Chapter 3. Culture and Industry: Germany 1907-141. The English equivalent of Volk is 'folk', but where itsresonances in English are merely quaint, in German it is moreor less the equivalent of'Germanness', particularly as distinctfrom French civilization—a connotation that goes back to thedawn of German national consciousness in the late eighteenthcentury.2. Joan Campbell, The German Werkbund: the Politics of Reformin the Applied Arts (Princeton, 1978), 24.3. Friedrich Naumann, quoted in Stanford Anderson, 'PeterBehrens and the Cultural Policy of Historial Determinism', inOppositions, no. n, Winter, 77.4. Fritz Schumacher, quoted in Anderson, ibid., 66.5. Campbell, The German Werkbund, 38-56.6. Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of theBauhaus in Weimar (Urbana, London, 1971), 32, n. 45.7. The word Gesta/tis used here in the sense given by WolfgangKohler, in Gestalt Psychology (New York, 1961), 177^8: 'In theGerman Language—at least since Goethe—the noun"Gestalt" has two meanings: besides the connotation of "shape"or "form" as a property of things, it has the meaning of aconcrete, individual, and characteristic entity, existing assomething detached and having a shape or form as one of itsattributes.'8. For a discussion of German formalist aesthetics, see HarryFrancis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomu, Empathy, Form

and Space: Problems of German Aesthetics 1873-1893 (Los Angeles,1994), Introduction.9. For a discussion of'type' as a concept in late-eighteenth-century French neoclassical discourse, see Anthony Vidler,The idea of Type: the Transformation of the Academic Ideal',Oppositions, 8, Spring 1977. Though today it is hardly possible todiscuss the notion of type without reference to this Frenchtradition, Muthesius's awareness of it can only have beenindirect at best—probably via Durand and Schinkel.10. Hermann Muthesius, proclamation at the WerkbundCongress at Cologne, 1914, quoted in Ulrich Conrads, Programsand Manifestos of 20th-century Architecture (Cambridge, Mass.,1971), 28.11. Frederick J. Schwartz, The Werkbund: Design Theory and MassCulture before the First World War (New Haven, 1996), 106-20.12. Ibid., 164-76.13. Ibid., 151-61.14. According to the critic Franz Servaes, writing in 1905, Thecurtailment of the personality [is] the first commandment ofstyle'; quoted in Schwartz, ibid., 162.15. See anon., 'Recent English Domestic Work' in the specialissue of The Architectural Review, vol. 5, Mervyn E. Macartney(ed.) (London, 1912); and Horace Field and Michael Bunney,English Domestic Architecture of the XVII and XVIII Centuries(Cleveland, Ohio, 1905).16. Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, Modern Architecture(London, 1980), 96.17. Peter Behrens, quoted in Franciscono, Walter Gropius and theCreation of the Bauhaus, 32.18. Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus,

30.19. Schwartz, The Werkbund, 206.20. Georg Simmel, The Metropolis and Mental Life',published as 'Die Grosstadt und das Geistesleben' in DieGrosstadtyjahrbuck der Gehe-Stiftung 9,1903. Published inEnglish in Donald Levine (ed.), Georg Simmel: On Individualityand Social Forms (Chicago, 1971), 324-39.22. Adolf Behne, 'Kunst, Handwerk, Technik', DieNeueRundschau, 33, no. 10,1922, trans. 'Art, Craft, Technology', inFrancesco Dal Co, Figures ofArchitecture and Thought (NewYork, 1990), 324-8.23. Emil Rathenau's son, Walter, was a pupil ofWilhelmDilthey and Hermann Helmholtz and believed passionately inthe power of technology to improve society.24. Tafuri and Dal Co, Modern Architecture, 98.

Chapter 4. The Urn and the Chamberpot: Adolf Loos1900-301. For Kraus see Peter Demetz, 'Introduction', and WalterBenjamin, 'Karl Kraus', in Peter Demetz (ed.), Reflections:Walter Benjamin (New York, 1978).2. Loos later published two collections of essays: InsLeereGesprochen, Vienna, 1932, trans. Spoken into the Void(Cambridge, Mass., 1982), consisting chiefly of articles whichappeared in the Neue Freie Presse on the occasion of the ViennaJubilee exhibition of 1898; and Trotzdem (Innsbruck, 1931) (nottranslated into English), containing essays written between

256 NOTES

1900 and 1930 (including a selection from DasAndere}.3. Adolf Loos, 'Ornament and Education', 1924, in Trotzdem.4. Adolf Loos, The Superfluous', 1908, in Trotzdem.5. Ibid.6. Adolf Loos, 'Cultural Degeneration', 1908, in Trotzdem.7. Adolf Loos, Architecture', 1910, in Trotzdem.8. Loos, 'Ornament and Education'.9. Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture (New York, 1960),book i, chapter:.10. Karl Kraus, Nachts (Leipzig, 1918), 290, quoted in MassimoCacciari, Architecture and Nihilism: on the Philosophy of ModernArchitecture (New Haven, 1993), chapter 10,147.11. Loos, 'Ornament and Education'.12. Karl Kraus, Die Packet, December 1913,389-90.13. Cacciari, Architecture and Nihilism, chapter n, 151. Thephrase refers to Wittgenstein's concept of'language games' inthe Philosophical Investigations.14. Adolf Loos, 'Potemkin City', 1898, in Spoken into the Void.15. Loos explicitly connected this use of materials withGottfried Semper s theory of Bekleidung.16. James D. Kornwolf, M. H. Baillie Scott and the Arts andCrafts Movement (Baltimore, 1972), 170. Kornwolf, 208, n. 35,convincingly argues that Baillie Scott was the main source forLoos's Arts and Crafts related interiors, not Richardson, asstated by Ludwig Miinz and Gustav Kunstler in Adolf 'Loos,Pioneer of Modern Architecture (Vienna, 1964; London, 1966),201.17. Miinz and Kunstler, Adolf Loos, 39.18. Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, EntretienssurTArchitecture (Paris1863-71), trans. Discourses on Architecture (New York 1889,1959),chapter 19, 'Domestic Architecture—Country Houses'.19. Adolf Loos, 'Joseph Veillich', 1929, in Trotzdem.20. Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: ModernArchitecture and Mass Media (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), 244.21. Ibid., 250.22. Loos, Architecture'.23. According to Loos's partner Heinrich Kulka, he wouldmake many alterations during construction, saying, 'I do notlike the height of this ceiling. Change it.' Colomina, Privacyand Publicity, 269.24. Leonard J. Kent and Elizabeth C. Knight (eds), SelectedWritings ofE. TA.Hoffmann, vol. i (Chicago, 1969), 168. Thisstory was reprinted in Bruno Taut, Fruhlicht, 1920.25. Cacciari, Architecture and Nihilism, chapter 14. As Cacciaripoints out, the split between the exterior and the interior inLoos's houses echoes Georg Simmel's concept of the split in thepsychology of modern man in the context of the metropolis.Exchange no longer takes place between individuals as it did inthe traditional small town but is the result of an abstractrationality.26. Ibid., 167.27. This is the view of a group of Italian critics, whose chiefrepresentative was Massimo Cacciari.

5. Expressionism and Futurism1. Donald E. Gordon, Expressionism: Art and Idea (New Haven,1987), 174-176.2. Ibid., 176.

3. Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraction and Empathy (London,1967), 115, originally published 1908.4. Iain Boyd Whyte, Bruno Taut and the Architecture of Activism(Cambridge, 1982), i.5. Rosemary Haag Bletter, 'Expressionist Architecture', inRose-Carol Washton Long (ed.), German Expressionism:Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Period to the Rise ofNational Socialism (New York, 1993), 122. The date of this articleis extremely important, because it proves thatTaut'smillennialist ideas originated before the First World War.6. On the tension in Taut's thought between the practical andsymbolic role of architecture, see Marcel Franciscono, WalterGropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus in Weimar (Chicago,1971), 94-95.7. See Bruno Taut, Ein Wohnhaus (Stuttgart, 1927), whichdocuments the colour scheme for Taut's own house. In thisconnection see Mark Wigley, White Walls: Designer Dresses(Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 3°4~I5-8. Bruno Taut, Die Stadtkronen (Jena, 1919), quoted in Whyte,Bruno Taut, 78.9. For a discussion of Expressionist symbolism, see RosemaryHaag Bletter, 'The Interpretation of the Glass Dream: Expres-sionist Architecture and the History of the Crystal Metaphor',in \:\\t Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 40, no. i,1981,20-43. A fascination with mystical traditions had beenwidespread among architects and artists since the 18905. Thisinterest is reflected in the increased popularity of syncretist reli-gions, such as Theosophy, as newly defined by HelenaBlavatsky, and Anthroposophy, founded by Rudolf Steiner,which attempted to fuse the Indian and Christian gnostic tradi-tions, and which were to continue to interest avant-gardearchitects well into the 19205. A curious example of this fascina-tion is the English Arts and Crafts architect W. R. Lethaby,who wrote a book, Architecture, Symbolism and Myth (London,1891; New York, 1975), on the Oriental and Neoplatonic tradi-tions. Taut's conception of the Kristallhaus clearly falls withinthis broad nexus of ideas.10. Giuliano Gresleri and Dario Matteoni, La Citta Mondiale(Venice, 1982). Otlet was to commission a new version of thisproject in 1926, Le Corbusier's Mundaneum.11. Peter Behrens anticipated vast theatres in which works thatincluded music would be staged; Franciscono, Walter Gropiusand the Creation of the Bauhaus, 95-96.12. Wolfgang Pehnt, Expressionist Architecture (New York, 1973),13. Pehnt notes that the number of theatres in Europe rose from302 in 1896 to 2,499 m 1926.13. Ibid., 13.14. Whyte, Bruno Taut, chapter 5.15. According to Whyte, 'decentralizing and a return to the landwere part of a vision which preoccupied both the exreme Rightand the extreme Left', ibid., 105. Whyte cites HeinrichTessenow s Handwerk und Kleinstadt (1918) as an example of thefusion of a conservative Heimatschutz and Kropotkin's anarcho-socialism.16. Bruno Taut, quoted in Whyte, Bruno Taut, 99.17. Whyte, Bruno Taut, 127.18. Richard Hiilsenbeck, DerNeue Mensch (1917), quoted inWhyte, ibid., 139.

NOTES 257

19. Richard Hulsenbeck, Raoul Hausmann, and JefimGolyscheff, quoted in Whyte, ibid., 140.20. Umbri Apollonio (ed.)> Futurist Manifestos (London,

21. Filippo Marinetti, Futurismo e Fascismo (1924), quoted inAdrian Lyttleton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy

1919-1929 (Princeton, 1973), 368.22. Marjory Perloff, The Futurist Movement: Avant-Garde,

Avant-Guerre and the Language of Rupture (Chicago, 1986),chapter i.23. Apollonio, Futurist Manifestos, 27.24. Esther Da Costa Meyer, The Work of Antonio Sant'E/ia:

Retreat into the Future (New Haven, 1995), 75.25. Umberto Boccioni, 'Technical Manifesto of FuturistPainting' (1910), reprinted in Apollonio, Futurist Manifestos, 27.26. Umberto Boccioni, quoted in Manfredo Tafuri, History and

Theories of Architecture (Granada, 1980), originally published asTeorie e storia di architettura (Laterza, 1976).27. Umberto Boccioni, quoted in Perloff, The FuturistMovement, 52.28. Apollonio, Futurist Manifestos, 51.29. Da Costa Meyer, The Work of Antonio Sant'E/ia, 139.30. Apollonio, Futurist Manifestos, 161.31. Da Costa Meyer, The Work of Antonio Sant'E/ia, 211.32. Da Costa Meyer, The Work of Antonio Sant'E/ia, chapter 5,gives a detailed account of the history of Sant'Elia'smanifesto.33. Ibid., 68-71.

34. Ibid., 21.35. Manfedo Tafuri, History ana1 Theories of Architecture, 30-4.

6. The Avant-gardes in Holland and Russia1. Wim de Wit, 'The Amsterdam School: Definition andDelineation', in The Amsterdam School: Dutch ExpressionistArchitecture 1915-1930 (Cooper-Hewitt Museum, 1983), 29-66.2. H. L. C. Jaffe, DeStijl 1917-1931: the Dutch Contribution to Art(Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 56-62.3. Yve- Alain Bois, Painting as Model, 'The De Stijl Idea'(Cambridge, Mass., 1990), 102-106.4. See Charles Rosen, Arnold Schoenberg (Chicago, 1975, 1996),

70-106.5. According to Rosen 'Melody is a definite shape, an arabesque

with a quasi-dramatic structure of tension and resolution', ibid.,99. 'Let's sit down, I hear melody,' Mondrian is reported to havesaid to a dancing partner; Piet Mondrian (Museum of ModernArt, New York, 1996), 77.6. Bart van der Leek, De Stijl, vol. i, no. 4, March 1918, 37,quoted in Bois, 'The De Stijl Idea', in.7. For an illuminating analysis of the controversy between Oudand Mondrian on the relation of architecture and painting, seeYve- Alain Bois, 'Mondrian and the Theory of Architecture',

Assemblage 4, 103-30.8. See Eduard F. Sekler, Joseph Hoffmann: the Architectural Work

(Princeton, 1985), 59.9. Theo van Doesburg, 'Towards a Plastic Architecture', DeStijl, VI, no. 6-7, 1924.10. Linda Dalrymple Henderson, The Fourth Dimension and

Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art (Princeton, 1983), 321-34.

n. J. J. P. Oud, quoted in Jaffe, De Stijl'1917-1931,193.12. Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, Modern Architecture(London, 1980), 204.13. Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism (New Haven,

1983)* 83-93-14. Henderson, The Fourth Dimension, 274-99.15. Lodder, Russian Constructivism, 98.16. Ibid., 65.17. Boris Arvatov, quoted in Lodder, Russian Constructivism,

107.18. Tafuri and Dal Co, Modern Architecture, 208.19. The word 'contemporary' was used to avoid 'modern',associated in Russian with Art Nouveau; Jean-Louis Cohen,verbal information.20. For the conflict between OSA and ASNOVA, see Hugh D.Hudson Jr., Blueprints and Blood: the Stalinization of SovietArchitecture (Princeton, 1994), chapter 3.21. Lodder, Russian Constructivism, 227.22. El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenberg, Veshch, 1922, quoted inLodder, ibid., 228.23. Anatole Kopp, Town and Revolution: Soviet Architecture andCity Planning 1917-1935 (New York, 1970), 143.24. The sectional interlocking of apartments and accesscorridors in the Narkomfin Building strongly resembles one ofLe Corbusier's sketches for the Ville Contemporaine of 1922;see Le Corbusier, (Euvre Complete, vol. i. (Zurich, 1929), 32. Ithas normally been assumed that Le Corbusier's cross-overapartment type for the Ville Radieuse and the United'Habitation was influenced by Moisei Ginsburg.25. Okhitovitch was arrested by the NKVD in 1935 and died inprison two years later; see Hudson, Blueprints and Blood, 160.26. Jean-Louis Cohen, 'Architecture and Modernity in theSoviet Union 1900-1937', inyf+£/,June 1991, no. 6,20-41.27. See Victor Erlich, Russian Formalism: History, Doctrine

(The Hague, 1955).28. Founded in 1929, Hudson, Blueprints and Blood, 126.

Chapter 7. Return to Order: Le Corbusier and ModernArchitecture in France 1920-351. For Jeanneret's early career see H. Allen Brooks, Le Corbusier's

Formative Years (Chicago, 1997); for his early intellectualformation see Paul Venable Turner, The Education ofLe

Corbusier (New York, 1977); for his interior designs andfurniture and his connections with the French decorative artssee Nancy Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France

(New Haven, 1991), chapter 3.2. All the articles signed Ozenfant-Jeanneret, LeCorbusier-Saugnier, and Ozenfant were later published byCres in the Collection de LEsprit Nouveau (Paris, 1925), whichincluded Vers uneArchitecture, L'ArtDe'coratifd'Aujourd'hui, andUrbanisme by Le Corbusier, and La Peinture Moderne byOzenfant and Jeanneret.3. Charles Henry (1859-1926) was author of LEsthetiqueScientific, his psycho-physical theory of art influenced formalistaesthetics in the inter-war period.4. Paul Dermee, 'Domaine de L'Esprit Nouveau', LEspritNouveau, no. i, October 1920, Introduction; quoted in RejeanLegault, LAppareilde /'Architecture: New Materials and

258 NOTES

1973),19.

Architectural Modernity in France 1889-1934 (PhD dissertation,MIT, 1997), 176.5. Fran9oise Will-Levaillant, 'Norm et Form a Travers L'EspritNouveau', in Le Retoura I'Ordre dans lesArts Plastiques et['Architecture 1919-1925 (proceedings of a colloquium at theUniversite de Saint-Etienne, Centre Interdisciplinaired'Etudes et de Recherche sur 1'Expression Contemporaine, 8,1974), 256.6. Jeanneret, 'Ce Salon d'Automne', L'Esprit Nouveau, no. 28,January 1925,2332-5, quoted in Legault, LAppareilde['Architecture, 261.7. L'Esprit Nouveau, no. 4.8. Ozenfant and Jeanneret, 'Purisme', L'Esprit Nouveau, no. 4,October 1920,369.9. For an analysis of Ozenfant and Jeanneret's theory of Purismsee Kenneth E. Silver, Esprit de Corps: The Art of the ParisianAvant-Garde and the First World War, 1914-1925 (Princeton,1989), 381-9.10. Jeanneret, quoted in Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Artsin France, 145.n. Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France, 136-45.12. Ibid., 139.13. Ibid., chapter 4,' Reconstructing Art Deco'.14. Arthur Ruegg, 'Le Pavilion de L'Esprit nouveau en tant quemusee imaginaire', in Stanislas von Moos (ed.), L'EspritNouveau: Le Cor busier et I 'Industrie 1920-1925 (S trasbourg,1987), 134.15. Ozenfant and Jeanneret, LaPeintureModerne, 168, quoted inRuegg, ibid, 137.16. Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age(London and New York, 1960), 202.17. Legault, L'Appareil de I 'Architecture, 188.18. Le Corbusier, (Euvre Complete, vol. i (Zurich, 1929), 25.19. Robert Mallet-Stevens, interviews with GuillaumeJanneau, Bulletin dela VieArtistique,}\M\z 1923 and December1924, quoted in Legault, L'Appareil del'Architecture, 267,283.20. Le Corbusier, Precisions (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 83.21. Le Corbusier, letter to Madame Meyer, (Euvre Complete,vol. i (Zurich, 1929), quoted in Monique Eleb-Vidal, 'HotelParticuliere', in J. Lucan (ed.), Le Corbusier, une Encyclopedic(Paris, 1987), 175.22. See Bruno Reichlin, 'Le Corbusier and De StijT, inCasabella, vol. 50, no. 520-1,1986,100-8. Reichlin demonstratesthe influence of van Doesburg in the entrance hall of theMaison La Roche of 1923.23. Le Corbusier, (Euvre Complete, vol. i (Zurich, 1929), 189.24. Le Corbusier, Precisions, 9.25. Francesco Passanti, 'The Vernacular, Modernism and LeCorbusier', m Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians,vol. 56, no. 4, December 1997,443- ^ee a^so Christopher Green,'The Architect as Artist', in Michael Raeburn and VictoriaWilson (eds), Le Corbusier: Architect of the Century (London,1987), 11726. Sigfried Giedion, Building in France, Building in Iron,Building in Ferro-concrete (Los Angeles, 1995), 169.27. See Norma Evenson, Paris: a Century of Change 1878-1978(New Haven, 1979), chapter 2.28. Ibid., 31.

29. See Le Corbusier, (Euvre Complete, vol. i (Zurich, 1929), 26;Lotissement 'Dom-ino'.30. See Alan Colquhoun, Modernity and the Classical Tradition(Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 'The Strategy of the GrandsTravaux', 121-61.31. On Le Corbusier's connections with neo-syndicalism seeMary McLeod, Urbanism and Utopia: Le Corbusier fromRegional Syndicalism to Vichy (PhD dissertation, PrincetonUniversity, 1985), chapter 3, Architecture and Revolution:Regional Syndicalism and the Plan', 94-166. See also RobertFishman, 'From Radiant City to Vichy: Le Corbusier's Plansand Politics 1928-1942', in Russell Walden (ed.), The OpenHand: Essays on Le Corbusier (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 244-85.On Fascism and proto-Fascism in France between the latenineteenth century and the 19405 see Zeev Sternhell, NeitherLeft nor Right (Princeton, 1993).32. See Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism, Technology,Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge,1984), chapter i, 'The Paradox of Reactionary Modernism', 1-17.33. Christopher Green, 'The Architect as Artist', 114 ff. It was atthis time, as Green points out, that Le Corbusier began toinclude organic and non-geometrical objects in his paintings.34. Le Corbusier, Une Maison, un Palais (Paris, 1928), 49, trans,author.35. Le Corbusier, (Euvre Complete, vol. 2 (Zurich, 1929), 186.36. Le Corbusier, 'Urbanisme des trois etablissementshumains', 1946,93, quoted in McLeod, Urbanism and Utopia,chapter 5, 'La Ferme Radieuse', 296.37. Le Corbusier, Precisions, 218.

Chapter 8. Weimar Germany: the Dialectic of theModern 1920-331. For a discussion of the term 'Neue Sachlichkeit', seeRosemary Haag Blotter's Introduction to Adolf Behne's TheModern Functional Building (Los Angeles, 1996), 47-53. For anoriginal and convincing definition of Sachlichkeit see FrancescoPassanti, 'The Vernacular, Modernism and Le Corbusier', inJournal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 56, no. 4,December 1997,443 ff. In the unexpected context of a text on LeCorbusier, Passanti argues that 'sache ('thing' or 'fact') refers notto an abstract universal but to an object that is sociallyconstructed and has become 'second nature'. Another way ofputting this is to say that sache refers to something withinlanguage, not beyond it, following the theory of Jacques Lacan;see The Seminars of Jacques Lacan, Book VII, The Ethics ofPsychoanalysis 1959-60 (originally published in French as LeSeminaire, Livre VII, LEthiquedelapsychanalyse, 1959-60, Paris,1986) translated by Dennis Porter, New York, 1922,43-5.2. Franz Roh, Post-Expressionism, Magic Realism: Problems ofRecent European Painting, 1925, quoted in Rose-Carol WashtonLong (ed.), German Expressionism: Documents from the End ofthe Wilhelmine Period to the Rise of National Socialism (NewYork, 1993), 294.3. English translation in Dal Co, Figures of Architecture andThought (New York, 1990), 324-8.4. Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of theBauhaus in Weimar (Urbana, ILL., 1971), 132.5. The Bauhaus Manifesto is quoted in full in Gillian Naylor,

NOTES 259

The Bauhaus Reassessed (London, 1985), 53-4.6. See Franciscono, Walter Gropius, chapter 6,173-236.7. Josef Albers, quoted in Naylor, The Bauhaus Reassessed, 101.8. Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age(London and New York, 1960), 282.9. Walter Gropius, quoted in Richard Pommer and ChristianOtto, Weissenhof7927and'the Modern Movement in Architecture(Chicago, 1991), ii.10. Naylor, The Bauhaus Reassessed, 144-60.11. Barbara Miller Lane, Architecture and Politics in Germany,1918-1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), chapter 4.12. See Nicholas Bullock and James Read, The Movement forHousing Reform in Germany and France, 1840-1914 (Cambridge,1985), chapters 10, n, and 12,21^-76.13. Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, Modern Architecture(London, 1980), 176. Manfredo Tafuri points out that fornineteenth-century town planners like Stubben there was nodirect link between planning and the architectural avant-garde—a fact that he attributes to their political conservatism.In Weimar Germany, both planning and Modernistarchitecture were associated with a Socialist agenda.14. Pommer and Otto, Weissenhof 1927,39.15. Nicholas Bullock, 'First the Kitchen then the Fasade', inJournal of Design History, vol. i, nos. 3 and 4,1988,177.16. In 1927 a federal institution was founded for research into theeconomic and constructional problems of mass housing (theReichsforchungsgesellschaft), but the housing programme wasterminated before this research could take effect.17. Adolf Behne, 'Dammerstock', in Die Form, H6,1930, trans,Margerita Navarro Baldeweg and author.18. See Rosemary Haag Bletter, 'Expressionism and the NewObjectivity', in Art Journal, summer 1983,108 ff.19. Schultze-Naumburg's books included ABCdesBauens,Artand Race, and The Face of the German House; see Lane,Architecture and Politics, chapter 5.20. Adolf Behne, The Modern Functional Building, 138.21. Theo van Doesburg, On European Architecture: CompleteEssays from Het Bouwbedrijf 1924-1931 (Boston, 1990),'Defending the Spirit of Space: Against DogmaticFunctionalism', 88-95.22. See also Linda Dalrymple Henderson, The FourthDimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art(Princeton, 1983), 36-37.23. Fragmentation of the box is the thesis of Bruno Zevi'sinfluential book Poetica deWarchitettura neoplastica (Milan,1953). Though the thesis is still persuasive, Zevi s ethico-political interpretation now seems dated. See also RichardPadovan s important article, 'Mies van der Rohe Reinterpreted',in IUA: International Architect, no. 3,1984,38-43.24. Mies adopted his mother's maiden name, Rohe, and addedthe faintly aristocratic-sounding Van der'.25. Other members of this circle included LudwigHilbersheimer, Hans Arp, Naum Gabo, Frederick Kiesler,Man Ray, Walter Benjamin, Philippe Soupault and RaoulHausmann; Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: a CriticalBiography (Chicago, 1985), 89.26. Mies van der Rohe, G, no. 2,1923.

27. Though Mies denied any influence from De Stijl, vanDoesburg s Counter-constructions are the most obvious sourcefor the Brick Country House. Most critics, however, suggestthat Mies's source was van Doesburg's painting Rhythm of aRussian Dance of 1918, which is graphically closer to the patternof Mies s plan. Be this as it may, the spatial concept suggested byMies's building is the same as that of the Counter-constructionsas described by van Doesburg in De Stijl m 1924 (quoted inchapter 6).28. Christian Norberg-Schulz, 'Talks with Mies van der Rohe',in ^Architectured'aujourd'hui, no. 79,1958,100.29. See the opening pages of Rosalind Krauss's essay 'The Grid,the Cloud and the Detail', in DetlefMertins (ed.), The Presenceof Mies (Princeton, 1984).30. This view was reinforced by Mies's reading of theexistentialist philosopher Romano Guardini in 1925; see FritzNeumeyer, The Artless Word: Mies van der Rohe on the Buildingytfr/(Cambridge, Mass., 1991), chapter 6,196 ff.31. According to F. W. J. Schelling: 'What must give the work ofart as a whole its beauty can no longer be form but somethingabove form, namely the essence... the expression of the spiritthat must dwell there'. Quoted in Svetlan Todorov, Theories ofthe Symbol (Ccxnd\ University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1982), 169.32. For ABC, see Jacques Gubler, Nationalisme etInternationalisme dans I 'ArchitectureModerne de la Suisse(Lausanne, 1975), 109-41.33. Ibid., 117.34. Ibid., 118.35. In ABC, nos. 3-4,1925.36. Hannes Meyer, quoted in Tafuri and Dal Co, ModernArchitecture, 168.

Chapter 9. From Rationalism to Revisionism:Architecture in Italy 1920-651. Gruppo 7, Rassegna Italiana, 1926, quoted in VittorioGregotti, New Directions in Italian Architecture (London, 1968),

13-2. Giuseppe Terragni, quoted in Dennis Doordan, BuildingModern Italy, Italian Architecture 1914-1936 (Princeton, 1988), 137.3. Giuseppe Pagano, quoted in Doordan, Building Modern Italy,140. See also Benevolo, History of Modern Architecture (London,1971), 596; and Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, ModernArchitecture (London, 1980), 284-5. With apparentinconsistency, these authors praise Terragni for his formalsubtlety, yet condemn him for his formalism.4. Doordan, Building Modern Italy, 109.5. Manfredo Tafuri, History of Italian Architecture, 1944-1985(Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 3.6. Gregotti, New Directions, 39-40.7. Bruno Zevi, quoted in Gregotti, New Directions, 40.8. INA Casa's announcement of aims, quoted in Tafuri, Historyof Italian Architecture, 89.9. Tafuri, History of Italian Architecture, 16.10. Ibid., 11-13.11. For an English translation of this essay see Joan Ockman(ed.), Architecture Culture 1943-1968 (New York, 1993), 200.

260 NOTES

12. Tafuri, History of Italian Architecture, 74.13. Ibid., 75.14. Ibid., 76.15. Gregotti, New Directions, 107,115.

Chapter 10. Neoclassicism, Organicism, and the WelfareState: Architecture in Scandinavia 1910-651. According to the economist John Maynard Keynes, theperiodic depressions that had plagued capitalism in thenineteenth century could be avoided by the use of deficitspending in times of recession. Keynes placed the emphasis onthe stimulation of demand.2. Hendrick O. Andersson, 'Modern Classicism in Norden', inScio Paavilainen (ed.), Nordic Classicism 1910-1930 (Museum ofFinnish Architecture, Helsinki, 1992).3. Seejorgen Sestoftandjorgen Christiansen, Guide to Danish

Architecture Vol. /, 1800-1960 (Copenhagen, 1991), 212.4. Ibid., 214.5. Ibid., 2186. Ibid., 220.

7. The Woodland Chapel at Enskede was part of a competitionproject won in collaboration with Sigurd Lewerentz. It is oftendifficult to distinguish between Asplund and Lewerentz'srespective contributions.9. The KV cooperative was a cooperative for the retailing ofhousehold goods and food, see Eva Rudberg, 'EarlyFunctionalism' in Twentieth-Century Architecture, Sweden,80.10. Hans Eliot, quoted in Eva Eriksson, 'Rationalism andClassicism 1915-1930', in Twentieth-Century Architecture,Sweden, 46.n. Backstrom, quoted in Rudberg, 'Building the Welfare of theFolkhemmet', 126.12. Ibid., 126.13. See Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, ModernArchitecture (London, 1980), 187.14. The neighbourhood idea, inherited from the Garden Citymovement, attempted to recover small-town communityvalues. In the 19605 such neighbourhood social centres wereincreasingly challenged by the demand for leisure facilities thatcould be provided only by a larger urban catchment area; seeRudberg, op. cit. 'Building the Welfare', 118-21,139.

15. Claes Caldenby, 'The Time for Large Programmes', inTwentieth-Century Architecture, Sweden, 142.16. Ibid. See also the discussion of Systems theory inchapter n.17. See Kim Dircknick, Guide to Danish Architecture, Vol. II,

1960-95 (Copenhagen, 1995), 57.18. Caldenby, 'The Time for Large Programmes', 155. Therewas also a contemporary 'Structuralist' movement in Holland.Both movements shared some basic ideas, but differed inothers. Dutch Structuralism is discussed in chapter n in thecontext of the Megastructural movement.19. Caldenby, 'The Time for Large Programmes', 151.20. Caldenby, 'The Time for Large Programmes', 153, andWilfred Wang et al., The Architecture of Peter Celsing(Stockholm, 1996), 19, fig. i and 60 ff.

21. Wang, The Architecture of Peter Celsing, 82 ff.22. Claes Dimling (ed.), ArchitectSigurd'Lewerentz (Stockholm,1997), 146 ff and 165 ff.23. It is probable that the Paimio Sanatorium was influenced byJohannes Duiker's Zonnestraal Sanatorium in Hilversum(1926-8). Aalto saw this building on his tour of modernbuildings in France and Holland in the summer of 1928. For adiscussion of this problem, see Eija Rauske, 'PaimioSanatorium', in Aalto in Seven Buildings (Museum of FinnishArchitecture, Helsinki, 1998), 13.24. Paul David Pearson, Ahar Aalto and the International Style(New York, 1978), 141.25. Kirmo Mikkola, Architecture in Finland in the2oth Century(Helsinki, 1981), 55.

26. Ibid.,53.27. Ibid., 55,56.

Chapter 11. From Le Corbusier to Megastructures:Urban Visions 1930-651. Mary McLeod, Urbanism and Utopia: Le CorbusierfromRegional Syndicalism to Vichy (PhD dissertation, PrincetonUniversity, 1985), chapter 6.2. The design was bitterly attacked by the Societee desarchitects diplomes par le gouvernement and the Conseilsuperieur d'hygiene, which warned that the building wouldendanger the mental health of its inhabitants; Stanislas vonMoos, Le Corbusier: Elements of a Synthesis (Cambridge, Mass.,1979), 158.3. Ibid., 177.4. Le Corbusier, CEuvre Complete, vol. 4 (Zurich, 1929), 174.5. Le Corbusier, quoted in McLeod, Urbanism and Utopia,chapter 6,362.6. For example, a debate in the Swiss journal Das Werk and theSwedish journal Byggmdstaren between 1937 and 1940 involvingthe art critic Peter Meyer and the architects Hans Schmidt andGunnar Sundbarg; see Christine C. and George R. Collins,'Monumentality: a Critical Matter in Modern Architecture', inHarvard Architectural Review, vol. 4, no. 4,1985,15-35.7. George Howe, quoted in Collins, ibid.8. Elizabeth Mock, quoted in Collins, ibid.9. Sigfried Giedion, Josep Lluis Sert, and Fernand Leger, 'NinePoints on Monumentality', originally planned for a 1943 publi-cation by American Abstract Artists, reprinted in Joan Ockman(ed.), Architecture Culture 1943-1968(New York, 1993), 29-30.10. Sigfried Giedion, 'The Need for a New Monumentality' inPaul Zucker (ed.), New Architecture and City Planning (NewYork, 1944), 549-68.11. Norma Evenson: Chandigarh (Berkeley and Los Angeles,1966).12. Norma Evenson: Two Brazilian Cities (New Haven, 1973).13. See Le Corbusier, Precisions (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 218—quoted on page 156 of this book.14. For a discussion of the gap between concept and reality inChandigarh, see Madhu Sarin, 'Chandigarh as a Place to Livein', in Russell Walden (ed.), The Open Hand (Cambridge,

Mass., 1977), 374.

NOTES 26l

15. Jacques Gubler, Nationalisme etInternationalisme dansVArchitecture Modernede la Suisse (Lausanne, 1975), 145-152.i6.The original members of Team X were: J. B. Bakema, Aidevan Eyck, Sandy van Ginkel and Hovens-Greve from Holland;Alison and Peter Smithson, W. and G. Howell, and JohnVoelcker from England; Georges Candilis and ShadrachWoods from France; and Rolf Gutmann from Switzerland; seeAAGS (Architectural Association General Studies) Theory andHistory Papers i, 'The Emergence of Team X out of CIAJVT(Architectural Association, London, 1982), compiled by AlisonSmithson.17. Alison Smithson (ed.), Team XPrimer (Cambridge, Mass.,1968), 78.18. Ibid., 48.19. This was reminiscent of the dilemma that had facedWilhelm Dilthey, Georg Simmel, and other proponents ofLebensphilosophie (Philosophy of Life) in Germany at the turn ofthe twentieth century; see, for example, Georg Simmel, 'TheConflict of Modern Culture' (1918) in Donald Levine (ed.),Georg Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms (Chicago,

I971), 375-393-20. Alison Smithson (ed.), TeamXPrimer, 48, 52.21. For example, Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology ofPerception, 1945 (London, 1962,1989).22. For Systems theory references see Further Reading, page268.23. Wim van Heuvel, Structuralism in Dutch Architecture(Rotterdam, 1992), 15.24.The structural anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss, withwhich the Dutch Structuralists claimed an affinity, shares theholism of Systems theory: both postulate the existence of'structures' that have an objective existence independent of thesubject but, whereas Structuralism sees these as stable,establishing long-term cultural norms, Systems theory seesthem as dynamic, driven by function.25. Fumihiko Maki, Investigations in Collective Form (School ofArchitecture, Washington University, St Louis, 1964).26. David B. Stewart, The Making of a Modern JapaneseArchitecture, 1868 to the Present (Tokyo and New York, 1987),179.27. Ibid., 181.28. Tange's report on the Tokyo Bay competition is a brilliantlyconcise statement of the aims of the Metabolist movement as awhole and illustrates the fusion of Utopian and pragmaticelements that is characteristic of the Japanese movement. It isreprinted in Qc\tm2if\, Architecture Culture, 327 ff.29. Antoine Picon, La ville territoire des cyborgs (Paris,1998), 74.30. Quoted in Banham, Megastructure (London and New York,1976), 81.31. Quoted in Banham, ibid., 60.32. The Situationists were influenced by the writings on the cityof the Marxist Sociologist Henri Lefebvre; see Henri Lefebvre,'The Right to the City', 1967, reprinted in QcVm&n, ArchitectureCulture, 427 ff.33. A characteristic feature of Constant's models is that theirstructure is designed to the scale of the models themselvesrather than to that of the architecture which they ostensibly

represent, indicating that the models are the work of someonetrained as a sculptor and a painter, not as an architect.34. Gilles Ivain's 'Formulary for a New Urbanism' is reprinted inOckmzn, Architecture Culture, 167 ff.

Chapter 12. Pax Americana: Architecture in America1945-651. In his later book The City in History (1961), Mumford was torevert to something like his previous pessimism.2. For an account of the relation between American andEuropean progressive legislation between 1890 and 1945, seeDaniel T. Rodgers, At/an tic Crossings: Social Politics in aProgressive Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1998). The foregoingaccount is indebted to Rodgers's book.3. For the Hertfordshire schools programme, see RichardLlewellyn-Davies and John Weeks, 'The HertfordshireAchievement' m Architectural Review, June 1952,367^-72; andD. Ehrenkrantz and John D. Day, 'Flexibility throughStandardisation' in Progressive Architecture, vol. 38, July 1957,105-15.4. The development of suburbia was greatly accelerated by theInterstate Highways Act of 1956, which provided for 41,000miles of new highway to be built with a 90 per cent federalsubsidy. The Act was the result often years of intensive lobby-ing by the American Road Builders' Association (within whichGeneral Motors formed the largest group); see ReinholdMartin, Architecture and Organization: USA c.K}$6 (PhD disser-tation, Princeton University, 1999), chapter 4, 260.5. For an account of the American house in the 19505 and 19605,see Markjarzombek, 'Good-Life Modernism and Beyond:The American House in the 19508 and 19605, a Commentary',in The Cornell Journal of Architecture, 4,1991,76-93.6. Charles Eames, John Entenza, and Herbert Matter, 'What isa House?', in Arts and Architecture, July 1944.7. 'La Casa 1955 di "Arts and Architecture'", in Domus, 320, July1956,21, quoted in Reyner Banham, 'Klarheit, Erlichkeit,Einfachkeit... and Wit too', in Elizabeth A. T. Smith (ed.),Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the CaseStudy Houses (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 183.8. For Charles and Ray Eames see John Neuhart, MarilynNeuhart, and Ray Eames, Eames Design: the Work of the Office ofCharles and Ray Eames (New York, 1989), and An EamesCelebration', m Architectural Design, September 1966.9. William H. Jordy, American Buildings and their Architects: theImpact of European Modernism in the Mid-Twentieth Century(Anchor Books, New York, 1976), 232.10. Henry Russell Hitchcock, 'Introduction', in Skidmore,O wings, and Merrill, Architecture of Skidmore, Owings, andMerrill, 7950-7962 (New York, 1963).11. Total modular coordination was in fact never achievedowing to the dimensional inflexibility of the mechanicalservices industries; verbal information from RobertHeintches.12. For an account of Eero Saarinen's General MotorsTechnical Center, see Martin, Architecture and Organization,chapter 12. In the long run, GM's policy of styling has proveda near disaster for the American automobile industry.13. In an informal conversation with students at the

262 NOTES

Architectural Association, London, May 1959, Mies said that,though he greatly admired Le Corbusier, he disagreed with hisindividualistic and monumental approach.14. For a contemporary English view of American automobiledesign in the 1950s, see Reyner Banham, ‘Vehicles of Desire’,in Art, September 1955, reprinted in Mary Banham et al. (eds),A Critic Writes: Essays by Reyner Banham (Berkeley, 1996).15. On Georgy Kepes’s influential aesthetic philosophy, seeMartin, Architecture and Organization, chapter 2.16. Arthur J. Pulos, The American Design Adventure 1940–1975

(Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 268.17. In the representation of architecture in the wall frescoes atPompeii, the columns are elongated and etherealized.18. See Louis Kahn, ‘Monumentality’, typed transcript, 14November 1961, published in Paul Zucker (ed.), NewArchitecture and City Planning (New York, 1944), 577–588. Thisarticle shows how close Kahn’s views on this subject were tothose of Sigfried Giedion (see chapter 11).19. There was a common interest in classicism amonganglophone architects in the early 1950s, partly triggered by thepublication of Rudolf Wittkower’s Architectural Principles in theAge of Humanism in 1949. This interest was shared by Kahn withboth the Smithsons and Wittkower’s pupil, Colin Rowe. SeeHenry Millon, ‘Rudolf Wittkower’s Architectural Principles inthe Age of Humanism and its Influence on the Development ofModern Architecture’, in Journal of the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians, 31, 1972, 83–9.20. Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms in Nature (New York, 1974),originally published 1899–1904; D’Arcy WentworthThompson, On Growth and Form (Cambridge, 1961), originallypublished 1917. Two exhibitions at the Institute ofContemporary Art in London—‘On Growth and Form’ in 1951

and ‘Parallel of Life and Art’ in 1953—testify to the popularityof these ideas at the time. D’Arcy Thompson’s Pythagoreanmodel, however, only applied at the level of gross biologicalforms, not at the level of biochemistry; it therefore gave a one-sided picture of the problem of form in biology. See JosephNeedham, ‘Biochemical Aspects of Form and Growth’, inLancelot Law Whyte (ed.), Aspects of Form (London, 1951).21. Louis Kahn, quoted in David B. Brownlee and David G. DeLong, Louis I. Kahn: in the Realm of Architecture (New York,1992), 58.22. Louis Kahn, quoted ibid., 58.23. For an insightful comparison between Kahn’s JewishCommunity Center and Mies’s unbuilt Library andAdministration Building, Illinois Institute of Technology,Chicago, see Colin Rowe, “Neoclassicism” and ModernArchitecture II’, in The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and otherEssays (Cambridge, Mass., 1982). Kahn’s Community Centerbears a family resemblance to the work of Aldo van Eyck andthe Dutch Structuralists. The Dutch architects shared Kahn’sinterest in Viollet-le-Duc’s structural rationalism, transmittedto them through H. P. Berlage. But they also shared his desireto return to the irreducible house-like unit of architecture (seechapter 11). The degree of mutual influence, if any, is not clear.24. See Jordy, American Buildings and their Architects, 407–26;and Reyner Banham, The Architecture of the Well TemperedEnvironment (Chicago, 1969), 246–55.25. For Kahn’s concept of an architecture of public symbolism,see Sarah Williams Ksiazak, ‘Architectural Culture in the 1950s:Louis Kahn and the National Assembly at Dhaka’, in Journal ofthe Society of Architectural Historians, 52, December 1993, 416–35,and ‘Critiques of Liberal Individualism: Louis Kahn’s CivicProjects 1947–1957’, in Assemblage, 31, 1996, 56–79.

notes 263

This is a starting place for readers who wish to explore varioustopics in greater detail. A more detailed list of sources can befound on the Oxford History of Art website.

GeneralReyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age(London and New York, 1960).Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture (Cambridge,Mass., 1967).Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, Modern Architecture(London, 1980).

Chapter 1. Art Nouveau 1890–1910GeneralDonald Drew Egbert, Social Radicalism and the Arts in WesternEurope: a Cultural History from the French Revolution to 1968

(New York, 1970).Eugènia W. Herbert, The Artist and Social Reform: France andBelgium, 1885–1898 (New Haven, 1961).H. Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society: the Reorientation ofEuropean Social Thought 1890–1930 (New York, 1961, 1977).David Lindenfeld, The Transformation of Positivism: AlexisMeinong and European Thought 1880–1920 (Berkeley and LosAngeles, 1980), chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5.Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (New York, 1980).

TheoryBarry Bergdoll (ed.), The Foundations of Architecture (New York,1990) contains an English translation of extracts from Viollet-le-Duc’s Dictionnaire Raisonné d’Architecture.Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper: in Search of Architecture(Cambridge, Mass., 1984).Nikolaus Pevsner, Some Architectural Writers of the NineteenthCentury (Oxford, 1972).

The Art Nouveau movementJean-Paul Bouillon, Art Nouveau 1870–1914 (New York, 1985).Akos Moravánszky, Competing Visions: Aesthetic Invention andSocial Imagination in Central European Architecture, 1867–1918

(Cambridge, Mass., 1998).Frank Russell (ed.), Art Nouveau Architecture (London, 1979).T. Schudi Madsen, Sources of Art Nouveau (New York, 1955) andArt Nouveau (New York, 1967).Debora L. Silverman, Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siècle France:Politics, Psychology and Style (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989).

Nancy Troy, The Decorative Arts in Fin-de-Siècle France: ArtNouveau to Le Corbusier (New Haven, 1991).Otto Wagner, Modern Architecture (1896), trans. Harry F.Mallgrave (Los Angeles, 1988).

Individual architectsAlan Crawford, Charles Rennie Mackintosh (London, 1995).David Dernie and Alastair Carew-Cox, Victor Horta (London,1995).Heinz Garetsegger, Otto Wagner (New York, 1979).Ian Latham, Joseph Maria Olbrich (New York, 1988).Eduard F. Sekler, Josef Hoffmann: the Architectural Work(Princeton, 1985).Klaus-Jürgen Sembach, Henry van de Velde (New York, 1989).Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Antoni Gaudí (New York, 1984).Pieter Singelenberg, H. P. Berlage (Utrecht, 1972).

Chapter 2. Organicism versus Classicism: Chicago1890–1910Primary sourcesLouis Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings (NewYork, 1965).Louis Sullivan, The Autobiography of an Idea (New York,1956).Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York, 1977).Frank Lloyd Wright, ‘The Art and Craft of the Machine’(catalogue of the 14th Annual Exhibition of the ChicagoArchitectural Club, 1901), reprinted in Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer(ed.), Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings, vol. 1 (New York,1992).Frank Lloyd Wright, ‘In the Cause of Architecture’, TheArchitectural Record, 1908, reprinted in Brooks Pfeiffer (ed.),Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings, vol. 1.

GeneralDonald Drew Egbert, ‘The Idea of Organic Expression inAmerican Architecture’ in Stow Persons, Evolutionary Thoughtin America (New Haven, 1950).Fiske Kimball, American Architecture (New York, 1928).Lewis Mumford, The Brown Decades (New York, 1931).Montgomery Schuyler, American Architecture and OtherWritings (Cambridge, Mass., 1961).Caroline van Eck, Organicism in Nineteenth-CenturyArchitecture: an Inquiry into its Theoretical and PhilosophicalBackground (Amsterdam, 1994).

264

Further Reading

The Chicago SchoolLeonard K. Eaton, American Architecture Comes of Age(Cambridge, Mass., 1874).William H. Jordy, American Buildings and their Architects:Progressive and Academic Ideals at the Turn of the Century (NewYork, 1972).Heinrich Klotz, ‘The Chicago Multistorey as a DesignProblem’, in John Zukovsky (ed.), Chicago Architecture (ArtInstitute of Chicago, 1987).Mario Manieri-Elia, ‘Toward the “Imperial City”: DanielBurnham and the City Beautiful Movement’, in GiorgioCiucci, Francesco Dal Co, Mario Manieri-Elia andManfredo Tafuri, The American City: From the Civil War tothe New Deal (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), originally publishedas La Città Americana della Guerra Civile al New Deal(Laterza, 1973).

The home and the Social Reform movementGwendolyn Wright, Building the American Dream: Moralismand the Model Home (Chicago, 1980).

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie SchoolH. Allen Brooks, The Prairie School: Frank Lloyd Wright and hisMid-west Contemporaries (Toronto, 1972).Giorgio Ciucci, ‘The City in Agrarian Ideology and FrankLloyd Wright: Origins and Development of Broad Acres’, inThe American City (Cambridge, Mass., 1979).Leonard K. Eaton, Two Chicago Architects and their Clients: FrankLloyd Wright and Howard Van Doren Shaw (New York, 1969).Neil Levine, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (Princeton,1996).Henry Russell Hitchcock, In the Nature of Materials (New York,1942).Norris Kelly Smith, Frank Lloyd Wright: a Study in ArchitecturalContent (American Life Foundation and Institute, 1979).

Individual architectsThomas Hines, Burnham of Chicago: Architect and Planner(Oxford, 1974).Mario Manieri-Elia, Louis Henry Sullivan (New York, 1996).Narciso Menocal, Architecture as Nature: the TranscendentalistIdea of Louis Sullivan (Madison, 1981).Robert C. Twombly, Louis Sullivan: his Life and Work (NewYork, 1986).

Chapter 3. Culture and Industry: Germany 1907–14GeneralLouis Dumont, German Ideology: from France to Germany andBack (Chicago, 1994).Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (Oxford, 1993).Donald I. Levine (ed.), Georg Simmel on Individuality and SocialForms (Chicago, 1971).George L. Mosse, The Crisis in German Ideology (New York,1964, 1998).Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair (New York, 1965).

AestheticsHarry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomu, Empathy,

Form and Space: Problems of German Aesthetics 1873–1893 (LosAngeles, 1994).Michael Podro, The Manifold of Perception: Theories of Art fromKant to Hildebrand (Oxford, 1972), and The Critical Historians ofArt (New Haven, 1982).Mitchell Schwarzer, German Architectural Theory and the Searchfor Modern Identity (Cambridge, 1995).

The Deutscher WerkbundJoan Campbell, The German Werkbund: the Politics of Reform inthe Applied Arts (Princeton, 1978).Francesco Dal Co, Figures of Architecture and Thought (NewYork, 1990).Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of theBauhaus in Weimar (Chicago, 1971).Mark Jarsombek, ‘The Kunstgewerbe, the Werkbund, and theAesthetics of Culture in the Wilhelmine Period’, Journal of theSociety of Architectural Historians, 53, March 1994, 7–9.Frederick J. Schwartz, The Werkbund: Design Theory and MassCulture before the First World War (New Haven, 1996).

Style and ideologyStanford Anderson, Peter Behrens and a New Architecture for theTwentieth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 2000).Stanford Anderson, ‘The Legacy of German Neoclassicismand Biedermeier: Tessenow, Behrens, Loos, and Mies’,Assemblage, 15, 63–87.Reyner Banham, A Concrete Atlantis (Cambridge, Mass., 1986),chapter 3 (for a discussion of Gropius’s Fagus Factory).Tilmann Buddensieg, Industriekultur: Peter Behrens and theAEG, trans. Iain Boyd Whyte (Cambridge, Mass., 1984).Heinrich Tessenow, ‘House Building and Such Things’, inRichard Burdett and Wilfred Wang (eds), 9H, no. 8, 1989, ‘OnRigour’.

Chapter 4. The Urn and the Chamberpot: Adolf Loos1900–30Primary sourcesAdolf Loos, Ins Leere Gesprochen, trans. Spoken into the Void(Cambridge, Mass., 1982).A few scattered essays from Trotzdem have been translated andappear in Münz and Künstler, Safran and Wang, and Rissilada(see below).

GeneralCarl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (New York, 1980), chapters2, 6, and 7.Otto Wagner, Modern Architecture (1896), trans. Harry F.Mallgrave (Los Angeles, 1988).

The work of Adolf LoosMassimo Cacciari, Architecture and Nihilism: on the Philosophy ofModern Architecture (New Haven, 1993).Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architectureand Mass Media (Cambridge, Mass., 1994).Benedetto Gravagnuolo, Adolf Loos: Theory and Works (NewYork, 1982).Ludwig Münz and Gustav Künstler, Adolf Loos, Pioneer of

further reading 265

Modern Architecture (Vienna, 1964; London, 1966).Max Rissalada (ed.)> Raumplan versus Plan Libre (New York,1988).Burkhardt Rukschcio and Roland Schachel, La Vieetl'CEuvrede Adolf Loos (Brussels, 1982).Yahuda Safran and Wilfred Wang (eds), The Architecture ofAdolf Loos (The Arts Council of Great Britain, 1985).PanayotisTournikiotis,ytfdfo^L00$ (Princeton, 1994).

Chapter 5. Expressionism and FuturismExpressionismPrimary sourcesPaul Scheerbart, Glasarchitektur(Berlin, 1914), trans. GlassArchitecture (New York, 1972).Bruno Taut, Alpine ArchitekturQlagzn, 1919), trans. AlpineArchitecture (New York, 1972).Bruno Taut, Friihlicht (Berlin, 1963).Bruno Taut, Die Stadtkronen (Jena, 1919).Bruno Taut, Ein Wohnhaus (Stuttgart, 1927).

GeneralRosemary Haag Bletter, 'The Interpretation of the GlassDream: Expressionist Architecture and the History of theCrystal Metaphor' in .Journal of the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians, 40, no. i, 1981,20-43.Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of theBauhausin Weimar (Chicago, 1971).Donald E. Gordon, Expressionism: Art andIdea (New Haven,1987).Wolfgang Pehnt, Expressionist Architecture (New York, 1973).Walter H. Sokel, The Writer in Extremis: Expressionism in 2othCentury German Literature (Stanford University Press, 1954).Rose-Carol Washton Long (ed.), German Expressionism:Documentsfrom the End of the Wilhelmine Period to the Rise ofNational Socialism (G. K. Hall and Company, 1993).Joan Weinstein, 'The November Revolution and theInstitutionalization of Expressionism in Berlin', in R. Hertzand N. Klein (eds), Twentieth-Century Art Theory (New York,1990).

Individual architectsIain Boyd Whyte, Bruno Taut and the Architecture of Activism(Cambridge, 1982).

FuturismPrimary sourcesUmbrio Apollonio (ed.), Futurist Manifestos (London, 1973).

GeneralAdrian Lyttleton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy1919-1929 (Princeton, 1973), chapter 14.Marjorie Perloff, The Futurist Moment: Avant-Garde, Avant-Guerre and the Language of Rupture (Chicago, 1986).Caroline Tisdall and Angelo Bozzella, Futurism (Oxford, 1973).

Individual architectsEsther Da Costa Meyer, The Work of Antonio Sant'Elia: Retreatinto the Future (New Haven, 1995).

Sanford Quinter, 'La Citta Nuova, Modernity and Continuity',in Zone, 1986,81-121.

Chapter 6. The Avant-gardes in Holland and RussiaHollandPrimary sourcesTheo van Doesburg, On European Architecture: Complete Essaysfrom HetBouwbedrijf 1924-1931 (Boston, 1990).

GeneralCarel Blotkamp (ed.), De Stijl 1917-1922: the Formative Years(Cambridge, Mass., 1982).Yve-Alain Bois, Pain f ing as Model, 'The De Stijl Idea'(Cambridge, Mass., 1990).Warncke Carsten-Peter, The Ideal as Art: De Stijl 1917-1931(Cologne, 1994).H. L. C. Jaffe, De Stijl1917-1931: the Dutch Contribution to Art(Cambridge, Mass., 1986).Jan Molema, The New Movement in the Netherlands 1924-1936(Rotterdam, 1996).Nancy Troy, The De Stijl Environment (Cambridge, Mass.,

1983)-

Individual architectsEvert van Straaten, Theo van Doesburg: Painter Architect (TheHague, 1988).

RussiaPrimary sourcesMoise Ginsburg, Style andEpoque (Cambridge, Mass., 1982).El Lissitzky, Russia: an Architecture for World Revolution(Cambridge, Mass., 1970; original: Vienna, 1930).

GeneralStephen Bann, The Tradition of Constructivism (London,

I974)-Jean-Louis Cohen, Architecture and Modernity in the SovietUnion 1900-1937', in^+{7(1991, part i, no. 3,46-67; part 2, no.6,20-41; part 3, no. 8,13-19; part 4, no. 10,11-21).Catherine Cooke, The Russian Avant-Garde: Theories of Art,Architecture and the City (London, 1995).Kenneth Frampton, 'The New Collectivity: Art andArchitecture in the Soviet Union, 1918-1932' in KennethFrampton, Modern Architecture: a Critical History (London,1982).Hugh D. Hudson Jr., Blueprints and Blood: the Stalinization ofSoviet Architecture (Princeton, 1994).Selim O. Khan-Magomedov, Pioneers of Soviet Architecture(New York, 1987).Anatole Kopp, Town and Revolution: Soviet Architecture andCity Planning 1917-1935 (New York, 1970).Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism (New Haven,

1983)-Oleg Shvidovsky, Building in the USSR (London, 1971).Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, 'The Avant-Garde,Urbanism and Planning in Soviet Russia', in Manfredo Tafuriand Francesco Dal Co, Modern Architecture (Milan, 1972; NewYork, 1976).

266 FURTHER READING

Individual architectsFrederick S. Starr, Konstantin Melnikov: Solo Architect in a MassSociety (Princeton, 1978).

Chapter 7. Return to Order: Le Corbusier and ModernArchitecture in France 1920-35Writings by Le CorbusierLe Corbusier, Aircraft (London, 1935).

Le Corbusier, L'ArtDe'coratifd'Aujourd'bui (Paris, 1925), trans.The Decorative Art of Today (London, 1987).Le Corbusier, CEuvre Complete, vol. 11910-29, vol. 21929-34,vol. 31934-38 (Zurich).Le Corbusier, Precisions surunEtat"Present del'Architecture etde

rUrbanisme (Paris, 1930), trans. Precisions (Cambridge, Mass., 1991).Le Corbusier, Quandles Cathe'drales Etaient Blanches (Paris,1937), trans. When the Cathedrals Were White (London, 1947).Le Corbusier, Urbanisme (Paris, 1925), trans. The City ofTomorrow (London, 1929).Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture (Paris, 1923), trans. Towards aNew Architecture (London, 1927).Le Corbusier, La Ville Radieuse (Editions de 1'Architecrured'Aujourd'hui, 1933), trans. The Radiant City (London, 1964).Le Corbusier, Le Voyaged'Orient (Paris, 1966), trans. IvanZaknic and Nicole Pertuisier (eds), Journey to the East(Cambridge, Mass., 1987).

Other primary sources

Sigfried Giedion, Bauen in Frankreich, Bauen in Risen, Bauen in

Eisenbeton (Leipzig, 1928), trans. Building in France, Building inIron, Building in Ferro-concrete (Los Angeles, 1995).On Le Corbusier

Timothy Benton, The Villas of Le Corbusier (New Haven, 1987).Brian Brace Taylor, Le Corbusier; the City of Refuge, Paris,1929-1933 (Chicago, 1987).H. Allen Brooks, Le Corbusier's Formative Years (Chicago, 1997)is the definitive work on the early career of Le Corbusier.Jean-Louis Cohen, Le Corbusier and the Mystique of the USSR(Princeton, 1992).Norma Evenson, Le Corbusier: the Machine and the GrandDesign (New York, 1969).Robert Fishman, Urban Utopias (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), PartIII, chapters 18-28.Nancy Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France (NewHaven, 1991), chapters 2,3, and 4.Stanislaus von Moos, Le Corbusier: Elements of a Synthesis

(Cambridge, Mass., 1979), first published as Le Corbusier,Elemente einer Synthese (Zurich, 1968).

Other individual architectsBrian Brace Taylor, Pierre Chareau, Designer and Architect

(Cologne, 1992).Maurice Culot (ed.), Robert Mallet-Stevens, Architecte

(Brussels, 1977).

Chapter 8. Weimar Germany: the Dialectic of theModern 1920-33Primary sourcesAdolf Behne, DerModerne Zweckbau (Munich, 1926, though

written in 1923), trans. The Modern Functional Building (LosAngeles, 1996).Theo van Doesburg, On European Architecture: Complete Essaysfrom Bouwbedrijf, 1924-1931 (Basel, 1990), 88 ff.Both texts discuss the controversy over functionalism andrationalism and give an insight into architectural discussions ofthe time.

GeneralManfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-gardesand Architecture from Piranesi to the 19705 (Cambridge, Mass.,1987), chapters 4 and 7.Rose-Carol Washton Long (ed.), German Expressionism:

Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Period to the Rise ofNational Socialism (New York, 1993), part 4.John Willet, Art and'Politics in the Weimar Period: the New

Sobriety 1917-1933 (New York, 1978).

TheBauhaus

Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of the

Bauhausin Weimar (Chicago, 1971).Gillian Naylor, The Bauhaus Reassessed (London, 1985).

Social housingBarbara Miller Lane, Architecture and Politics in Germany,

1918-1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968).Richard Pommer and Christian Otto, Weissenhof 1927 and theModern Movement in Architecture (Chicago, 1991).See also Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth, chapter 7.

Mies van derRohe

Robin Evans, 'Mies van der Rohe's Paradoxical Symmetries',AAFiles, 19, Spring 1990.Fritz Neumeyer, The Art less Word: Mies van der Rohe on the

BuildingArt (Cambridge, Mass., 1991) includes transcriptionsof all Mies's writings.Richard Padovan, 'Mies van der Rohe Reinterpreted', in UIA:International Architect, issue 3,1984,38-43.Franz Schulze, Mies van derRohe: a Critical Biography(Chicago, 1985).Ignasi Sola Morales, 'Mies van der Rohe and Minimalism', inDetlef Mertins (ed.), The Presence of Mies (Princeton, 1994).Wolf Tegethoff, Mies van derRohe: the Villas and CountryHouses (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1985).

ABCClaude Schnzidt, Hannes Meyer: Bui/dings, Projects, and

Writings, bilingual German and English edition (Switzerland,

1965)-

Other architects

F. R. S. Yorke, The Modern House (London, 1934,1962).

Chapter 9. From Rationalism to Revisionism:Architecture in Italy 1920-65Dennis Doordan, Building Modern Italy, Italian Architecture1914-1936 (Princeton, 1988).Richard Etlin, Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890-1940

FURTHER READING 267

(Cambridge, Mass., 1991) covers both the Novecento and theRationalist movements.Vittorio Gregotti, New Directions in Italian Architecture(London, 1968).Adrian Lyttleton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy1919-1929 (Princeton, 1987).Manfredo Tafuri, History of Italian Architecture, 1944-1985(Cambridge, Mass., 1989).

Chapter 10. Neoclassicism, Organicism, and the WelfareState: Architecture in Scandinavia 1910-65Denmark and SwedenScio Paavilainen (ed.), Nordic Classicism 1910—1930 (Museum ofFinnish Architecture, Helsinki, 1992).Claes Caldenby, Joran Lindvall, and Wilfred Wang (eds),Twentieth-Century Architecture, Sweden (Munich, 1998).Kim Dircknick, Guide to Danish Architecture Vol. II1960-1995(Copenhagen, 1995).Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture, 'Jorn Utzon:Transcultural Form and the Tectonic Metaphor' (Cambridge,Mass., 1995).Jorgen Sestoftandjorgen Christiansen, Guide to DanishArchitecture Vol. /, 1800-1960 (Copenhagen, 1995).

Individual architectsClaes Dimling (ed.), ArchitectSigurd'Lewerentz (Stockholm,

I997)-Eva Rudberg, Sven Markelius, Architect (Stockholm,1989).Felix Salaguren Beascoa de Corral, Arnejacobsen Works andProjects (Barcelona, 1989).Wilfred Wang et al., The Architecture of Peter Celsing(Stockholm, 1996).Stuart Wrede, The Architecture ofGunnarAsplund(Cambridge, Mass., 1980).

FinlandTaisto Makela, Architecture and Modern Identity in Finland'in Mariann Aav (ed.), Finnish Modern Design: Utopian IdealsandEvery-Day Reality (New Haven, 1998).Kirmo Mikkola, Architecture in Finland in the2oth Century(Helsinki, 1981).Malcolm Quantrill, Finnish Architecture and the ModernistTradition (London, 1995).

Individual architectsKarl Fleig (z&.\Alvar Aalto, vols. i and 2 (Zurich, 1963,1978), acollection of the complete works of Aalto.Paul David Pearson, Alvar Aalto and the International Style(New York, 1978).Goran Schildt,A/varAa/to The Early Years, The Decisive Years,and The Mature Years (New York, 1984-91).

Chapter 11. From Le Corbusier to Megastructures:Urban Visions 1930-65GeneralH. Allen Brooks (ed.), Le Corbusier (Princeton, 1987).Le Corbusier, CEuvre Complete (Zurich, 1929-70), vols. 2-7.

Stanislas von Moos, Le Corbusier: Elements of a Synthesis(Cambridge, Mass., 1979).

The New MonumentalityChristine C. and George R. Collins, 'Monumentality: aCritical Matter in Modern Architecture', in HarvardArchitectural Review, vol. 4, no. 4,1985,15-35.Sigfried Giedion, Josep Lluis Sert, and Fernand Leger, 'NinePoints on Monumentality', reprinted in Joan Ockman (ed.),Architecture Culture 1943-1968 (New York, 1993), 29-30.

Chandigarh and BrasiliaNorma Evenson: Chandigarh (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966)and Two Brazilian Cities (New Haven, 1973).Madhu Sarin, 'Chandigarh as a Place to Live in', in RussellWalden (ed.), The Open Hand (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).James Holston, The Modernist City: an Anthropological Critiqueof Brasilia (Chicago, 1989).

CIAMand Team XAAGS (Architectural Association General Studies), Theoryand History Papers i, 'The Emergence of Team X out ofCIAM' (Architectural Association, London, 1982).Le Corbusier, La Charte d'Athenes (1942), trans. The AthensCharter (New York, 1973).Eric P. Mumford, The CIAM Discourse of Urbanism, 1928-1959(Cambridge, Mass., 2000).Oscar Newman, CIAM 59 in Otterlo (Stuttgart, 1961).Alison Smithson (ed.), Team XPrimer (Cambridge, Mass.,1968).

Systems TheoryLudwigvon Bertalanffy, General Systems Theory (London, 1968).Jean-Fran9ois Lyotard, The Post-Modern Condition(Minneapolis, 1983).Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cyberneticsand Society (London and Boston, 1950).

Structuralism and MegastructuresReyner Banham, Megastructure (London and New York,1976).Wim van Heuvel, Structuralism in Dutch Architecture(Rotterdam, 1992).Hilde Heynen, 'New Babylon: the Antinomies of Utopia', inAssemblage, 29, April 1996,25-39.David B. Stewart, The Making of a Modern JapaneseArchitecture, 1868 to the Present (Tokyo and New York, 1987),chapters 7 and 8.

SituationistsLibero Andreotti and Xavier Costa (eds), Situationists: Art,Politics, Urbanism (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona,1996).Elisabeth Sussman (ed.), On the Passage of a Few People Througha Rather Brief Moment in Time: the Situationist International,7957-7972 (Cambridge, Mass., 1989).Mark Wigley, Constant s New BabyIon: a Hyper-Architecture ofDesire (Rotterdam, 1998).

268 FURTHER READING

Chapter 12. Pax Americana: Architecture in the USA1945–65GeneralDonald Albrecht (ed.), World War II and the American Dream:How War-time Building Changed a Nation (Washington, DC,1995).William H. Jordy, American Buildings and their Architects: theImpact of European Modernism in the Mid-Twentieth Century(New York, 1976).Joan Ockman, Architecture Culture 1943–1968 (New York, 1993).Arthur J. Pulos, The American Design Adventure 1940–1975

(Cambridge, Mass., 1988).

Political and social backgroundHerbert Croly, The Promise of American Life (Cambridge,Mass., 1965), first published 1909.C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (Oxford, 1956, 2000).David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven, 1950).Daniel T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in aProgressive Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1998).

The Case Study House ProgramCharles Eames, John Entenza, and Herbert Matter, ‘What is aHouse?’ in Arts and Architecture, July 1944.Elizabeth A. T. Smith (ed.), Blueprints for Modern Living:History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses (Cambridge, Mass.,1989).

Charles EamesJohn Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart, and Ray Eames, EamesDesign: the Work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames (NewYork, 1989).

Eero SaarinenEero Saarinen, Eero Saarinen on His Work (New Haven,1968).Skidmore, Owings, and MerrillSkidmore, Owings, and Merrill, Architecture of Skidmore,Owings, and Merrill, 1950–1962 (New York, 1963).

Mies van der RohePhilip C. Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (Museum of Modern Art,New York, 1947).Detlef Mertins (ed.), The Presence of Mies (Princeton, 1994).Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word (Cambridge, Mass., 1991).

Louis KahnDavid B. Brownlee and David G. De Long, Louis I. Kahn: in theRealm of Architecture (New York, 1992).Sarah Williams Ksiazak, ‘Architectural Culture in the 1950s:Louis Kahn and the National Assembly at Dhaka’, in Journal ofthe Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 52, December 1993,416–35.‘Critiques of Liberal Individualism: Louis Kahn’s Civic Projects1947–1957’, in Assemblage, 31, 1996, 56–79.

further reading 269

270 timeline

1890 W. L. B. Jenney, Fair Store, ChicagoJulius Langbehn, Rembrandt alsErzieherWilliam Morris, News from Nowhere

1891 Antoni Gaudí begins transept façades ofSagrada Familia, BarcelonaDaniel Burnham and John WellbornRoot, Monadnock Building, Chicago

1892 Louis Sullivan, Wainwright Building,St. Louis, and ‘Ornament inArchitecture’

1893 Victor Horta, Hôtel Tassel, BrusselsAugust Schmarsow, The Essence ofArchitectural CreationAdolf Hildebrand, The Problem of Formin the Fine ArtsAlois Riegl, Questions of StyleMunich Secession foundedEdvard Munch, The Scream

1894 Burnham and Co., Reliance Building,ChicagoHenry Van de Velde, The Purification ofArt

1895 Henry Van de Velde, Bloemenwerf,Uccle, BelgiumSiegfried Bing opens L’Art Nouveaugallery, Paris

1896 Louis Sullivan, ‘The Tall Office BuildingArtistically Considered’Otto Wagner, Modern ArchitectureHenri Bergson, Matter and Memory

1897 Alfred Lichtwark forms Art EducationMovement in GermanyVereinigten Werkstätten founded inMunichVienna Secession founded

1898 Antoni Gaudí begins Chapel of theColonia Güell, BarcelonaHéctor Guimard, Castel Béranger, ParisOtto Wagner, Majolica House, ViennaDresdner Werkstätten fürHandwerkskunst founded

1899 Karl Kraus founds Die Fackel in ViennaThorstein Veblen, Theory of the LeisureClassVictor Horta, Maison du Peuple,BrusselsFounding of artists’ colony, Darmstadt,Germany

1900 Héctor Guimard, Paris Métro stations

1890 Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler Sioux Indians massacred at WoundedKnee, South DakotaForth Bridge near Edinburgh completedHerman Hollerith develops a punch cardmachine, later founds IBM

1891 Whitcombe Judson invents the zipper

1892 François Hennebique patents areinforced-concrete systemRudolph Diesel develops diesel engineDepartment of Social Sciences andAnthropology founded at the Universityof Chicago

1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, ChicagoThomas A. Edison invents the movieprojector

1894 Claude Debussy, Prelude to theAfternoon of a FaunGuglielmo Marconi invents wirelesstelegraphyJesse W. Reno invents the escalatorDreyfus Affair begins in FranceSino-Japanese War begins

1895 Lumière brothers show first motionpictures using film projectionWilhelm Konrad von Roentgen discoversX-raysJoseph Thomson discovers the electronH. G. Wells, The Time MachineLondon School of Economics founded

1896 Henri Becquerel founds science ofradioactivityFirst modern Olympics held

1897 Emile Durkheim, Suicide: A Study inSociologyJane Addams founds Hull House inChicagoTheodor Herzl calls first Zionist CongressIvan Pavlov conducts classicalconditioning experiments

1898 H. G. Wells, War of the WorldsSpanish-American War

1899 Boxer Rebellion begins in ChinaBoer War begins in South AfricaMax Planck proposes quantum theory

1900 World’s Fair, ParisSigmund Freud, Interpretation ofDreamsJohn Ruskin dies

Timeline

1890

1900

EventsArt and architecture

1901 Frank Lloyd Wright lecture on ‘The Artand Craft of the Machine’, ChicagoAlois Riegl, The Late Roman Art Industry

1902 Ferdinand Avenarius forms theDürerbund in GermanyBenedetto Croce, Aesthetic as Scienceof Expression and General Linguistic

1903 Auguste Perret, apartment house at 25Rue Franklin, ParisGeorg Simmel, ‘The Metropolis andMental Life’Wiener Werkstätte foundedH. P. Berlage, Stock Exchange,Amsterdam

1904 Hermann Muthesius, Das EnglischeHausBund Heimatschutz formed in Germany

1905 Paul Mebes, Um 1800Fauvism emerges at the Salond’Automne in ParisExpressionists form Die Brücke inDresden

1906 Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichenopen Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession in New YorkAlexandr Bogdanov founds Proletkult inRussia

1907 Deutscher Werkbund founded in MunichPeter Behrens appointed designconsultant to AEGAdolf Loos, Kärntner Bar, ViennaMies van der Rohe, Riehl House,Potsdam, GermanyCubism developed by Pablo Picasso andGeorges Braque in Paris

1908 Adolf Loos, ‘Ornament and Crime’Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street,DresdenWilhelm Worringer, Abstraction andEmpathy

1909 Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett,Plan of ChicagoRaymond Unwin, Town Planning inPracticeSergei Diaghilev founds Ballets Russesin ParisFilippo Tommaso Marinetti, ‘TheFoundation and Manifesto of Futurism’Peter Behrens, AEG Turbine Factory,BerlinNeue Künstler Vereinegung founded inMunich

1910 Herwarth Walden founds ExpressionistDer Sturm review in BerlinFirst of two Wasmuth volumes on FrankLloyd Wright published in Europe

1911 Walter Gropius lectures on ‘Kunst undIndustriebau’, GermanyFirst Blaue Reiter art exhibition, MunichFuturist exhibition, MilanAdolf Loos, Looshaus, ViennaWassily Kandinsky, Concerning theSpiritual in Art

1901 First transatlantic radio telegraphictransmissionVictor Talking Machine Co. formedQueen Victoria of England diesColonies of Australia united

1902 Willis H. Carrier invents air conditioningMarie and Pierre Curie discover radium

1903 Emmeline Goulden Pankhurst formsWomen’s Social and Political Union inBritainOrville and Wilbur Wright achieve firstpowered aircraft flightFord Motor Company formed in Detroit

1904 Isadora Duncan founds school ofmodern dance in BerlinRusso-Japanese War begins

1905 First Russian Revolution failsAlbert Einstein formulates the specialtheory of relativity

1906 Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

1907 William James, PragmatismHenry Adams, The Education of HenryAdams

1908 Georges Sorel, Reflections on ViolenceYoung Turk Revolution in Turkey

1909 P. D. Ouspensky, The Fourth DimensionFirst newsreel filmsLouis Blériot flies across the EnglishChannel

1910 Igor Stravinsky, The FirebirdArnold Schönberg formulates anExpressionist atonal music systemBoer republics united as South Africa

1911 Frederick Taylor, The Principles ofScientific ManagementGustav Mahler, Ninth SymphonyRoald Amundsen reaches South Pole

timeline 271

Timeline

1910


272 timeline

1912 Daniel Burnham & Co., ConwayBuilding, ChicagoMikhail Larionov and NataliaGoncharova create Rayonism in RussiaWalter Gropius, Fagus Factory, Alfeld ander Leine, GermanyMarcel Duchamp, Nude Descending aStaircase

1913 Kasimir Malevich founds Suprematistmovement in Russia

1914 Antonio Sant’Elia, project for La CittàNuovaDeutscher Werkbund exhibition, ColognePaul Scheerbart, GlasarchitekturGiorgio de Chirico, Mystery andMelancholy of a StreetLe Corbusier, Dom-ino frame

1915 Heinrich Wölfflin, Principles of ArtHistoryAlfred Stieglitz, Marcel Duchamp, andFrancis Picabia found journal 291 inNew York

1916 Hugo Ball founds Cabaret Voltaire inZurich and begins Dada movement

1917 Henry van de Velde, Formules de laBeauté Architectonique ModerneDe Stijl first published in theNetherlandsBerlin Dada movement founded

1918 Novembergruppe and Arbeitsrat furKunst formed in GermanyDe Stijl Manifesto

1919 Bauhaus established by Walter Gropiusin WeimarExhibition for Unknown Architects,BerlinBruno Taut, Alpine Architektur

1920 Hans Poelzig, project for SalzburgFestspielhausVladimir Tatlin, project for a Monumentto the Third InternationalBruno Taut founds magazine FrühlichtLe Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfantfound the review L’Esprit Nouveau inParisFirst International Dada Fair, Berlin

1921 Wassili Luckhardt, People’s TheatreprojectTheo van Doesburg moves to WeimarFirst Working Group of Constructivistsformed in Moscow

1922 Otto Bartning, Sternkirche project,GermanyAdolf Behne, ‘Kunst, Handwerk,Technik’Chicago Tribune Tower competitionLe Corbusier, Ville Contemporaine

1912 The sinking of the TitanicAfrican National Congress founded inSouth Africa

1913 First performance of Igor Stravinsky’sThe Rite of SpringMarcel Proust publishes first volume ofRemembrance of Things PastNiels Bohr develops quantummechanicsStandard time signal issued worldwide

1914 Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound foundmagazine BLAST in London and createVorticismFirst World War breaks out followingassassination of Archduke FranzFerdinand of Austria in SerbiaPanama Canal opens

1915 D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a NationAlbert Einstein publishes GeneralTheory of Relativity

1916 M. H. J. Schoenmaeker, The Principlesof Plastic MathematicsEaster Rebellion against British inIreland

1917 D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, On Growthand FormBolsheviks seize power in RussiaAmerica enters First World War

1918 Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the WestFirst World War endsCivil War begins in Russia

1919 Robert Wiene, Cabinet of Dr. CaligariTreaty of Versailles between First WorldWar Allies and GermanySpartacus workers’ uprising in BerlinLeague of Nations foundedErnest Rutherford splits the atom

1920 Britain establishes Jewish state inPalestineIrish Civil WarSuffrage granted to women in the USAVladimir Lenin institutes the NewEconomic Plan (NEP)First commercial radio broadcast

1921 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicusKarel Capek coins term ‘robot’ in playR.U.R.British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)founded

1922 Sigmund Freud, Beyond the PleasurePrincipleF. W. Murnau, NosferatuArnold Schönberg first employs serialsystem in Op. 25 Piano SuiteT. S. Eliot, Waste Land

Timeline

1920


1922 Dada–Constructivist meeting, WeimarAdolf Loos, Rufer House, ViennaAlexei Gan, Konstruktivizm manifestoEl Lissitzky founds Veshch (Object) inBerlinHans Richter, El Lissitzky, and WernerGräf found journal G in BerlinLászló Moholy-Nagy joins BauhausExhibition of Soviet Art, BerlinGiovanni Muzio, Ca’ Brutto, Milan

1923 ‘Art and Technology: A New Unity’exhibition, Bauhaus, WeimarAdolf Behne writes Der ModerneZweckbau, published in 1926Mies van der Rohe, Lessing HouseprojectExhibition of work of Theo van Doesburgand Cor van Eesteren in ParisNikolai Ladovsky founds Association ofNew Architects (ASNOVA)

1924 Gerrit Rietveld, Schroeder House,Utrecht, the NetherlandsRobert Mallet-Stevens, Project for a VillaSwiss journal ABC begins publicationMoisei Ginsburg, Style and EpochAndré Breton, ‘Manifesto of Surrealism’Erich Mendelsohn, Einstein Tower,Potsdam, Germany

1925 Le Corbusier, Vers une ArchitectureExposition des Arts Décoratifs etIndustriels, ParisBauhaus moves to DessauErnst May appointed city architect forFrankfurt-am-MainNeue Sachlichkeit exhibition, MannheimUnion of Contemporary Architects (OSA)formed

1926 Adolf Loos, Tristan Tzara House, ParisHannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer,Petersschule, BaselEl Lissitzky, Proun Room, HanoverGrete Schütte-Lihotsky, FrankfurtKitchenPaul Schultze-Naumburg, ABC desBauensGruppo 7 formed in Milan

1927 Deutscher Werkbund-sponsoredexhibition, Weissenhofsiedlung,StuttgartIlya Golosov, Zuyev Workers’ Club,MoscowIvan Leonidov, Lenin Institute project,Moscow

1928 Sigfried Giedion, Building in France,Building in Iron, Building in Ferro-concreteFirst meeting of CIAM at La Sarraz,SwitzerlandLászló Moholy-Nagy, Von Material zuArchitekturAdolf Loos, Moller House, ViennaWalter Gropius, Siemensstadt, Berlin Rudolf Steiner, Goetheanum, Dornach,Switzerland

1922 James Joyce, UlyssesUSSR formedForeign Minister Walter Rathenauassassinated in GermanyReform in Turkey led by Ataturk

1923 Ernst Cassirer publishes first of three vol-umes of Philosophy of Symbolic FormsGeorg Lukács, History and Class-ConsciousnessLeon Trotsky, Literature and RevolutionHyperinflation in GermanyNeon advertising signs introducedRainer Maria Rilke, Duino ElegiesRené Clair inaugurates Surrealist filmwith Entr’acteFerdinand Léger and Dudley Murphy,Ballet mécanique

1924 Rudolf Steiner founds AnthroposophySocietyThomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

1925 Charlie Chaplin, The Gold RushSergei Eisenstein, Battleship PotemkinJohn Dos Passos, Manhattan TransferF. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great GatsbyScopes evolution trial in USAAlban Berg, WozzeckAdolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

1926 Fritz Lang, MetropolisJohn Logie Baird, C. F. Jenkins, andD. Mihaly invent the television

1927 Martin Heidegger, Being and TimeThe Jazz Singer, first motion picturewith soundJoseph Stalin comes to power in USSRCharles Lindbergh makes first solotransatlantic flight

1928 Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weill,Threepenny OperaAndré Breton, NadjaEqual voting rights granted to women inBritainFirst Five Year Plan in the USSRAlexander Fleming discovers penicillin

timeline 273

Timeline


274 timeline

1929 Moisei Ginsburg, Narkomfin apartmentblock, MoscowMies van der Rohe, Barcelona PavilionMuseum of Modern Art founded in NewYorkHenry Russell Hitchcock, ModernArchitectureJohannes Brinkman and LeendertCornelis van der Vlugt, Van NelleFactory, Rotterdam

1930 Adolf Loos, Müller House, PragueErik Gunnar Asplund, StockholmIndustrial Arts Exhibition buildingsMies van der Rohe, Tugendhat House,Brno, Czech RepublicErnst May and Hannes Meyer move tothe Soviet Union

1931 Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy, FranceBerlin Building ExpositionSalvador Dali, The Persistence ofMemory

1932 The Dessau Bauhaus closes‘The International Style: Architecturesince 1922’ exhibition at MoMA, NewYorkRockefeller Center opens in New York

1933 Le Corbusier, Ville RadieuseLe Corbusier, Cité de Refuge, ParisAlvar Aalto, Tuberculosis Sanatorium,Paimio, FinlandEmil Kaufmann, Von Ledoux bisCorbusierSurrealist review Minotaure founded inParis

1934 Socialist Realism ordained as officialstyle in USSRJohn Dewey, Art as ExperienceHenri Focillon, The Life of Forms in ArtHerbert Read, Art and Industry

1935 Mies van der Rohe, Hubbe Houseproject, Magdeburg, GermanyJ. J. P. Oud, Nieuwe Bouwkunste inHolland en EuropeMarcello Piacentini, University of Rome

1936 Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of theModern MovementFrank Lloyd Wright, Falling Water, BearRun, PennsylvaniaGiuseppe Terragni, Casa del Fascio,Como, Italy

1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition staged byHitler in MunichPablo Picasso, Guernica

1938 Alvar Aalto, Villa Mairea, Noormarkku,Finland

1929 Louis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, UnChien AndalouDziga Vertov, The Man with a MovieCameraEugène Freysinnet develops prestressedconcreteKarl Mannheim, Ideology and UtopiaMartha Graham founds dance companyHugo Eckener flies around the worldStock market crash on Wall Street marksbeginning of Great Depression

1930 Ortega y Gasset, Revolt of the MassesLuis Buñuel, L’Age d’orGandhi’s Salt March, IndiaRobert Maillart, Salginatobel Bridge,SwitzerlandFirst World Cup soccer match

1931 Fritz Lang, MGeorge Washington Bridge in New Yorkcompleted

1932 Aldous Huxley, Brave New WorldSocial Democrats come to power inSwedenBASF and AEG develop magnetic taperecording in Germany

1933 Alexander Kojève begins lectures onHegel in ParisAndré Malraux, Man’s FateAdolf Hitler becomes chancellor ofGermanyAmerican Congress adopts New Dealsocial and economic measures

1934 Cole Porter, Anything GoesLewis Mumford, Technics andCivilizationArnold Toynbee, first volume of TheStudy of HistoryMao Tse-tung begins Long March inChinaStalin begins purge of political leaders inthe USSR

1935 John Maynard Keynes, General Theory ofEmployment, Interest and MoneyHoover Dam completed in Colorado,AmericaLeni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the WillCharlie Chaplin, Modern TimesPopular Front comes to power in France

1936 Spanish Civil War beginsBBC inaugurates television serviceAlan Turing adumbrates a programmablecomputer

1937 American aviator Amelia Earhart lostover PacificJean Renoir, The Great Illusion

1938 Kristallnacht attack on Jews in GermanyMunich Pact between Britain, France,Germany and ItalyArthur H. Compton and George Inmaninvent the fluorescent light

Timeline

1930


1939 Clement Greenberg, ‘Avant-Garde andKitsch’Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology

1940 Hans Hofmann’s Spring marks thebeginning of Abstract Expressionism inAmerica

1941 Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time andArchitecture

1942 Espoizione Universale di Roma (EUR)planned but never opened

1943

1944 Patrick Abercrombie, Greater LondonPlan

1945 Bruno Zevi, Towards an OrganicArchitecture

1946 Knoll Associates foundedMario Ridolfi, Manuale dell’architetto

1947 First Levittown suburban tractdevelopment founded on Long Island,New YorkThe New Empiricism movement beginsin SwedenLászló Moholy-Nagy, Vision in MotionJackson Pollock begins drip paintings

1948 Sigfried Giedion, Mechanization TakesCommandCOBRA group of painters foundedHans Sedlmayr, Art in Crisis: The LostCenter

1949 Rudolf Wittkower, ArchitecturalPrinciples in the Age of HumanismAlison and Peter Smithson, HunstantonSchool, Norfolk, BritainPhilip Johnson, Glass House, NewCanaan, ConnecticutEames House, Pacific Palisades,CaliforniaINA Casa created in Italy

1950 Bruno Zevi, A History of ModernArchitectureJean Dubuffet’s Le Metafisyx (Corps deDame) exemplifies art brut

1951 Festival of Britain, LondonLe Corbusier and others begin plan ofChandigarhE. H. Gombrich, ‘Meditations on aHobby Horse’

1952 Le Corbusier, Unité d’Habitation,MarseillesAlvar Aalto, Säynätsalo Town Hall,Finland

1939 German invasion of Poland beginsSecond World War New York World’s Fair

1940 Robert M. Page invents radar

1941 Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in USAOrson Welles, Citizen KaneJapan bombs Pearl Harbor in Hawaii:America enters the war

1942 Enrico Fermi and Manhattan Projectcreate first artificial atomic reaction

1943 Jean Paul Sartre, Being andNothingness

1944 Germany develops V2 rocketAllies stage D-Day invasion of Normandy

1945 John von Neumann theorizes aprogrammable computerRoberto Rossellini, Rome, Open CityGermany surrenders, ending SecondWorld War in EuropeAmerica drops atomic bombs on Japan

1946 United Nations establishedNew Town Act, BritainENIAC electronic vacuum tubecomputer developed

1947 India gains independence; state ofPakistan createdGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT) established in GenevaChuck Yeager flies at supersonic speed

1948 Vittorio de Sica, The Bicycle ThievesMarshall Plan institutes Americanfinancial aid to EuropeCommunists assume power inCzechoslovakiaBerlin blockade and airliftGandhi assassinatedNation of Israel establishedScientists at Bell Labs invent transistorNorbert Wiener, Cybernetics

1949 Claude Lévi-Strauss, The ElementaryStructures of KinshipArthur Miller, Death of a SalesmanGeorge Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-FourNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) foundedEastern Germany becomes an independ-ent state under Communist government Apartheid instituted in South AfricaMao Tse-tung seizes power in China

1950 David Riesman, The Lonely CrowdKorean War begins

1951 Akira Kurosawa, RashomonMarshall McLuhan, The MechanicalBrideComputers sold commercially

1952 Samuel Beckett, Waiting for GodotJohn Cage, 4’33”America explodes first hydrogen bomb

timeline 275

Timeline

1940

1950


276 timeline

1952 Independent Group established inLondonMichel Tapié, An Other Art

1953 Meyer Shapiro, ‘Style’

1954 Richard Buckminster Fuller, geodesicdomeMario Ridolfi and Ludovico Quaroni,Tiburtino Housing Estate, Rome

1955 Robert Rauschenberg’s The Bedestablishes American Pop Art

1956 Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer beginBrasilia planSigurd Lewerentz, St. Mark’s Church,Biörkhaven, SwedenTeam X challenge to CIAM

1957 Jørn Utzon, Sydney Opera HouseSituationist International formed in ParisConstant begins New Babylon seriesCarlo Scarpa, Gipsoteca Canoviana,Treviso, Italy

1958 BPR, Torre Velasca, Milan

1959 Alvar Aalto, Vuoksenniska Church,Imatra, FinlandGiuseppe Samonà, Urbanism and theFuture of the CityLudovico Quaroni, plan for QuartiereCepalle Barene di S. Giuliano in Mestre,Italy

1960 Reyner Banham, Theory and Design inthe First Machine Age

1961 Archigram group formed in BritainJane Jacobs, The Death and Life of GreatAmerican Cities

1962 George Kubler, The Shape of TimeRichard Buckminster Fuller, project for ageodesic dome over midtown ManhattanAndy Warhol, Marilyn MonroeLouis Kahn begins work on capitalcomplex at Dhaka

1963 Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam

1964 Donald Judd and others exhibit firstMinimalist works in New YorkBernard Rudofsky, Architecture withoutArchitects exhibition, MoMA, New YorkGiovanni Michelucci, Church of S.Giovanni, Florence

1965 Peter Celsing begins work on CultureHouse complex, StockholmReyner Banham, ‘A House is not a Home’Le Corbusier dies

1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgayreach the summit of Mount EverestFrancis H. C. Crick and James D. Watsondiscover DNA

1954 Vietnam divided after French defeatAlgerian war of independence beginsConstruction of Disneyland in Anaheim,California begins

1955 Vladimir Nabokov, LolitaJonas Salk announces development ofpolio vaccine

1956 Federal Interstate Highway Act passed inAmericaNikita Khrushchev denounces Stalin inthe USSRHungarian uprising put down by USSR

1957 Roland Barthes, MythologiesIngmar Bergman, The Seventh SealLeonard Bernstein, West Side StoryJack Kerouac, On the RoadSputnik satellite launched by USSR

1958 European Economic Community (EEC)founded

1959 Jean-Luc Godard, BreathlessFrançois Truffaut, The 400 BlowsC. P. Snow, The Two Cultures and theScientific RevolutionJack S. Kilby of Texas Instrumentsinvents the integrated circuitNixon–Khrushchev ‘Kitchen Debate’Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba

1960 Federico Fellini, La Dolce VitaSharpeville massacre in South Africa

1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarinbecomes first man to travel in spaceBerlin Wall erectedAmerican invasion of Cuba at the Bay ofPigsConstruction begins on the SevernBridge, Britain

1962 Jorge Luis Borges, LabyrintheRachel Carson’s Silent Spring begins anew environmental movementThomas Kuhn, The Structure ofScientific RevolutionsCuban missile crisis

1963 Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny developBASIC computer languageBetty Friedan, The Feminine MystiquePresident John F. Kennedy assassinatedin DallasCultural Revolution begins in China

1964 New York World’s FairGulf of Tonkin Resolution signalsAmerica’s entry into war in Vietnam

1965 India–Pakistan WarAmerican forces sent to VietnamIBM develops word processing

Timeline

1960


List of Illustrations

The author and publisher would like to thank the followingindividuals and institutions who have kindly given permissionto reproduce the illustrations listed below.

1. Victor Horta. View within the octagonal stair hall, Hotel VanEetvelde, 1895, Brussels. Photo Bastin ScEvrard, Brussels.©DACS2002.2. Eugene Rousseau. Jardiniere, 1887. Musee des ArtsDecoratifs, Paris/photo Laurent-SullyJaulmes. Tous droitsreserves.3. Henry van de Velde. Chair, 1896. NordenfjeldskeKunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim.4. Henry van de Velde. Havana Cigar Shop, 1899, Berlin.Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.5. Victor Horta. First-floor plan, Hotel Van Eetvelde, 1895,Brussels. Drawing courtesy David Dernie, from D. Dernie andA. Carew-Cox, Victor Horta (Academy Editions, 1995), p. 121.©DACS2002.6. Hector Guimard. Maison Coilliot, 1897, Lille. Photo FelipeFerre, Paris.7. Lucien Weissenburger. 24 Rue Lionnais, 1903, Nancy. PhotoAchim Bednorz, Cologne.8. Hendrick Petrus Berlage. The ground floor of the top-lit stairhall, Villa Henny, 1898, The Hague. Berlage Archive(inv. ph. 0059) Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam.9. Antoni Gaudi. Chapel of the Colonia Giiell, 1898-1914,Barcelona. Photo Institut Amatller d'Art Hispanic,Barcelona.10 and n. Otto Wagner. Post Office Savings Bank, 1904-6,Vienna. Photo Tim Benton, Cambridge.12. Joseph Maria Olbrich. A decorated casket, 1901. InstitutMathildenhohe, Museum Kiinstlerkolonie, Darmstadt.13 and 14. Joseph Maria Olbrich. Two postcards, 1904, showinga group of Olbrich s houses in the Darmstadt artists' colony.Institut Mathildenhohe, Museum Kunstlerkolonie,Darmstadt.15. Josef Hoffmann. Palais Stoclet, 1905-11, Brussels. Photo TheConway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, University ofLondon.16. Josef Hoffmann. Palais Stoclet, 1905-11, Brussels. BildarchivFoto Marburg.17. Charles Rennie Mackintosh. House for an Art Lover, 1900.Photo © Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow.18. Richard Riemerschmid. Chest, 1905. Christies Images,London. © DACS 2002.

19. Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. The AuditoriumBuilding, 1886-9, Chicago. Photo The Conway Library,Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.20. Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root. The RookeryBuilding, 1885-6, Chicago. The Chicago HistoricalSociety/photo J. Taylor.21. Henry Hobson Richardson. The Marshall Field WholesaleStore, 1885-7, Chicago (demolished). Photo RIBAPhotographs Library, London.22. Burnham and Co. The Reliance Building, 1891-4, Chicago.Photo © Angelo Hornack Library, London.23. Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. The WainwrightBuilding, 1890-2, St Louis. Missouri Historical Society.24. Louis Sullivan. 'The High Building Question', 1891. FromThe Graphic (ityi).25. Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted. World'sColumbian Exposition, 1893, Chicago, plan showingjacksonPark and Midway Plaisance. Chicago Historical Society.26. Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted. The Courtof Honour (demolished). Chicago Historical Society.27. Burnham and Co. The Conway Building, 1912, Chicago.Chicago Historical Society.28. Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett. City plan forChicago, 1909. Drawing by Jules Guerin. Chicago HistoricalSociety.29. Frank Lloyd Wright. Ward Willits House, 1902, HighlandPark, Illinois. Photo Paul Rocheleau, Richmond, MA.30. Frank Lloyd Wright. Ward Willits House, 1902, HighlandPark, Illinois, ground-floor plan. © 2001 the Frank LloydWright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. © ARS, NY and DACS,London 2002.31. Frank Lloyd Wright. Coonley House, 1908, Riverside,Illinois. Photo Courtesy The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives,Scottsdale, AZ. © ARS, NY and DACS, London 2002.32. Frank Lloyd Wright. The Robie House, 1908-10, SouthWoodlawn, Chicago. Photo The University of MichiganLibrary, Ann Arbor, MI. © ARS, NY and DACS, London2OO2.

33. Peter Behrens. AEG Turbine Factory, 1908-9, Berlin. PhotoAchim Bednorz, Cologne. © DACS 2002.34. Heinrich Tessenow. Houses designed for the Garden Cityof Hohensalza, 1911-14.35. Heinrich Tessenow. Dalcroze Institute, 1911-12, Hellerau.Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.36. Heinrich Tessenow. Dalcroze Institute, 1911-12, Hellerau, a

277

dance performance, with a set by Adolphe Appia. PhotoInstitut Jaques-Dalcroze, Geneva. CID.37. Peter Behrens, AEG Pavilion, Shipbuilding Exposition,1908, Berlin. © DACS 2002.38. Peter Behrens. Design for the cover of an AEG prospectus,1910. © DACS 2002.39. Peter Behrens. AEG Turbine Factory, 1908–9, Berlin.Photo Achim Bednorz, Cologne. © DACS 2002.40. Peter Behrens. AEG Turbine Factory, 1908–9, Berlin, detailof rocker. Photo Achim Bednorz, Cologne. © DACS 2002.41. Peter Behrens. AEG Turbine Factory, 1908–9, Berlin, cornerbuttress. Photo Achim Bednorz, Cologne. © DACS 2002.42. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer. Fagus Factory, 1911–12,Alfeld an der Leine. AKG London/photo Erik Bohr.43. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer. Fagus Factory, 1911–12,Alfeld an Leine, entrance lobby. Photo Achim Bednorz,Cologne.44. Adolf Loos. Kärntner Bar, 1907, Vienna. AKGLondon/photo Erich Lessing. © DACS 2002.45. Adolf Loos. The Looshaus, 1909–11, Michaelerplatz,Vienna. Adolf Loos Archiv, Grafische Sammlung Albertina,Vienna. © DACS 2002.46. Adolf Loos. Chest of drawers, c.1900. Courtesy Board ofTrustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. © DACS2002.47. Adolf Loos. Scheu House, 1912, Vienna. Adolf Loos Archiv,Grafische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna. © DACS 2002.48. Adolf Loos. Müller House, 1929–30, Prague. Drawing fromM. Risselada (ed.), Raumplan versus Plan Libre (DelftUniversity Press, 1987), p. 79. © DACS 2002.49. Adolf Loos. Moller House, 1927–8, Vienna, plan andsection from M. Risselada (ed.) Raumplan versus Plan Libre(Delft University Press, 1987), p. 35, fig. 25. © DACS 2002.50. Adolf Loos. Rufer House, 1922, diagrammatic elevations,from P. Tournikiotis, Adolf Loos (Princeton Architectural Press,1994; original edition Editions Macula, Paris), p. 68, fig. 49a.© DACS 2002.51. Adolf Loos. Scheu House, 1912, Vienna. Adolf Loos Archiv,Grafische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna. © DACS 2002.52. Adolf Loos. Müller House, 1929–30, Prague. Adolf LoosArchiv, Grafische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna. © DACS2002.53. Antonio Sant’Elia. Power Station, 1914. Consuelo AccettiCollection, Milan.54. Oskar Kokoschka. Murderer, Hope of Women, 1909.Poster. © DACS 2002.55. Bruno Taut. Haus des Himmels, 1919, from Frühlicht. RIBALibrary, London. 56 Bruno Taut. Snow, Ice, Glass, from AlpineArchitektur (1919). RIBA Library, London.57. Bruno Taut. Glass Pavilion, Werkbund Exhibition, 1914,Cologne. Werkbundarchiv, Museum der Dinge, Berlin.58. Hans Poelzig. Grosses Schausspielhaus, 1919, Berlin(demolished c.1980). Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.59. Wassili Luckhardt. Project for a People’s Theatre, 1921,external view, plan and section. Stiftung Archiv der Akademieder Künste, Sammlung Baukunst, Berlin.60. Otto Bartning. Sternkirche, 1922. Technisches UniversitätDarmstadt.

61. Rudolf Steiner. Goetheanum, 1924–8, Dornach. PhotoAchim Bednorz, Cologne. © DACS 2002.62. Hermann Finsterlin. Traum aus Glas, 1920. Watercolour,19 × 29 cm. Graphische Sammlung (inv. GL1277), Staatsgalerie,Stuttgart.63. Wenzel Hablik. Exhibition Building, 1920. Watercolour.Wenzel Hablik Museum, Itzehoe.64. Jefim Golyscheff. Little Houses with Illuminated Roofs,1920.65. Umberto Boccioni. Dynamism of a Speeding Horse +Houses. 1914–15. Gouache and oil on wood and cardboard, withcollage, copper and iron sheet, tin coating 112.9 × 115 cm. TheSolomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy GuggenheimCollection, Venice/photo David Heald. 66. Antonio Sant’Elia. Modern Building, 1913. Museo Civico,Como.67. Joze Plecnik. A page from the Rome sketchbook: amonument to Victor Emmanuel, 1899. Architectural Museum,Ljubljana.68. Antonio Sant’Elia. La Città Nuova, 1914. Museo Civico,Como.69. Otto Wagner. Project from the Ferdinandsbrücke, 1905,Vienna.70. Emil Hoppe. Sketch for a tower, 1902.71. Umberto Boccioni. Table+Bottle+Houses, 1912.Axonometric drawing. Private Collection.72. Piet Mondrian. Composition I with Red, Yellow and Blue,1921. 103 × 100 cm. Gemeentemuseum, The Hague/© 2002Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o Beeldrecht, Amsterdam,Holland and DACS, London. 73. Vilmos Huszar. Spatial Colour Composition for a Stairwell,1918. From Levende Kunst, 2 (1919), p. 60. © DACS 2002.74. Jan Wils. De Dubbele Sleutel, 1918. Wils Archive (inv. 1711),Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam.75. Theo van Doesburg and Hans Vogel. Studies for PurelyArchitectural Sculpture Resulting from Ground Plan, 1921.Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, Rijswijk(Amsterdam)/photo Kim Koster. © DACS 2002.76. Theo van Doesburg and Cornelis Van Eesteren.Axonometric drawing of Hôtel Particulier, 1923. Collection VanEesteren-Fluck en Van Lohuizen-Foundation, TheHague/photo Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam.© DACS 2002.77. Theo van Doesburg. Counter-construction (Constructionin Space-Time II), 1923. Gouache, ink and pencil on paper,46 × 39.7 cm © Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (inv. 527), Madrid.© DACS 2002.78. J. J. P. Oud. Social Housing, 1924–7, Hook of Holland.RIBA Photographs Collection, London. © DACS 2002.79. Johannes Brinkman and Leendert Cornelis van der Vlugt.Sonneveld House, 1928. Netherlands Photo Archive(Collection Jan Kamman)/Netherlands Architecture Institute,Rotterdam.80. Nikolai Ladovsky. Design for a Commune, 1920.81. Kasimir Malevich. Arkhitekton, 1924.82. Vladimir Tatlin. Monument to the Third International,1919–20. Society for Co-operation in Russian and SovietStudies, London.

278 list of illustrations

83. Alexander Rodchenko. Drawing of a chess table, 1925.Rodchenko Archiv, Moscow. © DACS 2002.84. Lyubov Popova. Set for Meyerhold s Bio-mechanicalTheatre, 1922.85. Alexander and Viktor Vesnin. Competition Design for theMoscow Headquarters of the Leningrad Pravda, 1924.©DACS 2002.86. Moisei Ginsburg. Narkomfin Housing, 1928-9, Moscow.87. Konstantin Melnikov. The USSR Pavilion, Exposition desArts Decoratifs, 1925, Paris.88. Ivan Leonidov. The Lenin Institute of Librarianship, 1927.From A. Kopp, Architecture et Urbanism SovietiquesdesAnneesVingt. Ville et Revolution (Paris: Editions Anthropos, 1967),p. 199.89. Boris lofan. Palace of the Soviets, 1931-3. Photo Novosti(London).90. Jeanneret/Le Corbusier. Still Life, 1919. © Fondation LeCorbusier (FLC 304), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris andDACS, London 2002.91. Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. Pavilion de L'EspritNouveau at the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, 1925, Paris.© Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris andDACS, London 2002.92. Auguste Perret. Musee des Travaux Publics, 1936-46, Paris.L'Institut Francais d'Architecture, Paris.93. Le Corbusier. Dom-ino Frame, 1914. © Fondation LeCorbusier (FLC 19209), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris andDACS, London 2002.94. Le Corbusier. Citrohan House, 1925-7,Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart. © Fondation Le Corbusier(Li(2)4o), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London2OO2.

95. Rob Mallet-Stevens. Project for a Villa, 1924. © ADAGP,Paris and DACS, London 2002.96. Le Corbusier. Housing, 1928. Pessac. © FLC/ADAGP,Paris and DACS, London 2002.97. Le Corbusier. Four House Types, 1929. © Fondation LeCorbusier, Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London2OO2.

98. Le Corbusier. Villa Savoye, 1929-31, Poissy. Photo JaimeArdiles-Arce, New \o&J Architectural Digest, New York andLos Angeles. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London2002.

99. Le Corbusier. Villa Savoye, 1929-31, Poissy. First floor.© Fondation Le Corbusier ^2(17)35), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP,Paris and DACS, London 2002.100. Le Corbusier. Villa Savoye, 1929-31, Poissy. Plans.© Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris andDACS, London 2002.101. Le Corbusier. Ville Contemporaine, 1922. Fondation LeCorbusier (29711), Paris. DACS. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris andDACS, London 2002.102. Le Corbusier. Cite de Refuge, 1929-33, Paris. Fondation LeCorbusier (10907), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS,London 2002.103. Le Corbusier. Cite de Refuge, 1929-33, Paris. Fondation LeCorbusier (10910), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS,London 2002.

104. Le Corbusier. Villa de Mandrot, 1931, Pradet. FondationLe Corbusier 2(19)16), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris andDACS, London 2002.105. Le Corbusier. Radiant Village Cooperatif, 1934-8.© Fondation Le Corbusier 3(20)61), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP,Paris and DACS, London 2002.106. Mies van der Rohe. German Pavilion, InternationalExposition, 1929, Barcelona (demolished, rebuilt 1986). PhotoEloi Bonjoch, Barcelona. © DACS 2002.107. Lyonel Feininger. Cover of the 'Bauhaus Manifesto', 1919.Woodcut, black ink on green wove paper, 30.2 x 18.6 cm.Courtesy of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard UniversityArt Museums, Gift of Mrs Lyonel Feininger/photo RickStafford © Harvard University. © DACS 2002.108. Marianne Brandt. Ceiling light, 1927. Bauhaus Archiv,Museum fur Gestaltung, Berlin. © VG Bild Kunst, Bonn.109. and no Walter Gropius. Bauhaus Building, 1926, Dessau.Photo AKG (London).in. Otto Haesler and Walter Gropius. Dammerstock Estate,1927^8, Karlsruhe, plan.112. Walter Gropius. Apartment Block, 1928, Siemensstadt,Berlin. Photo Achim Bednorz, Cologne.113. Housing, 1925-7, Dusseldorf. Photo Ullstein Bild,Berlin/Photo Hedda Walther, 1937.114 and 115. Hans Scharoun. Schminke House, 1933, Lobau.Photos Achim Bednorz, Cologne.116. Mies van der Rohe. Riehl House, 1907, Berlin(Neubabelsberg, Potsdam). Photograph Courtesy The Miesvan der Rohe Archive, The Museum of Modern Art, NewYork. ©DACS 2002.117. Mies van der Rohe. Plans, Brick Country House, 1924,Concrete Country House, 1923, and Lessing House, 1923.Drawings by Alan Colquhoun. © DACS 2002.118. Mies van der Rohe. Wolf House, 1925-7, Guben(demolished). Photograph courtesy The Mies van der RoheArchive, the Museum of Modern Art, New York. ©.119. Mies van der Rohe. Tugendhat House, 1928-30, Brno,Czech Republic. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.120. Mies van der Rohe. Tugendhat House, 1928-30, Brno,Czech Republic. RIBA Photographs Collection, London.©DACS 2002.121. Mies van der Rohe. Upper and lower-floor plans,Tugendhat House, 1928-30, Brno, Czech Republic. Both inkon illustration board, 76.5 x 102 cm. The Mies van der RoheArchive, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of theArchitect. © 2001 The Museum of Modern Art, New York.©DACS 2002.122. Mies van der Rohe. Site and floor plan, German Pavilion,International Exposition, 1929, Barcelona (demolished, rebuilt1986). From I. de Sola-Morales, C. Cirici, and F. Ramos, Miesvan der Rohe, Barcelona Pavilion (Barcelona: Editorial GustavoGili, 1993), p. 29, fig. 53.123. Mies van der Rohe. Hubbe House, 1935, Magdeburg.Perspective of living room and terrace with Elbe River. Pencilon illustration board, 49.2 x 67.4 cm. The Mies van der RoheArchive, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of thearchitect. © 2001 The Museum of Modern Art, New York.©DACS 2002.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 279

124. Mies van der Rohe. Hubbe House, 1935, Magdeburg. Planwith furniture placement. Pencil on illustration board,48 x 67.3 cm. The Mies van der Rohe Archive, The Museum ofModern Art, New York. Gift of the architect. © 2001 TheMuseum of Modern Art, New York. © DACS 2002.125. Mart Stam. Reinterpretation of Mies van der Rohe'sConcrete Office Building of 1922.126. Carlo Scarpa. Gipsoteca Canoviana, 1956-7, Possagno,Treviso. Arcaid, London/photo Richard Bryant.127. Giuseppe Terragni. Casa del Fascio, 1932-6, Como. PhotoTim Benton, Cambridge.128. Mario Ridolfi and Ludovico Quaroni. Tiburtino HousingEstate, 1944-54, Rome. Photo Andrea Jemolo, Rome.129. Ernesto Rogers, Lodovico Belgiojoso and EnricoPeressutti (BPR). Office Building, 1958-69, Piazza Meda,Milan. Photo Archivio Electa, Milan.130. Giovanni Michelucci. church of S. Giovanni, 1962,Autostrada del Sole, Florence. Photo AKG (London).131. Ludovico Quaroni. Model, Quartiere Cepalle Barene diGiuliano, 1959, Mestre. Fondo Quaroni, Archivicio StoricoOlivetti, Ivrea.132. Erik Gunnar Asplund. Entrance Pavilion, Industrial ArtsExhibition, 1930, Stockholm. Arkitekturmuseet,Stockholm/photo Okand.133. Sven Backstrom and Lief Reinius. rosta Housing Estate,1946, Orebro. Arkitekturmuseet, Stockholm/photo MaxPlunger.134. Peter Celsing. Cultural Centre, Culture House, 1965-76,Stockholm. Arkitekturmuseet, Stockholm/photo ThomasHjerten.135. Sigurd Lewerentz. St. Marks Church, 1956-60, Bjorkhaven.Arkitekturmuseet, Stockholm/photo Max Plunger.136. Alva Aalto. Tuberculosis Sanatorium, 1929-33, Paimio.Alvar Aalto Foundation/ Alvar Aalto Museum,Jyvaskyla/photo G. Welin.137. Alvar Aalto. Site plan, Tuberculosis Sanatorium, 1929-33,Paimio. Alvar Aalto Foundation/Alvar Aalto Museum,Jyvaskyla.138. Alvar Aalto. Villa Mairea, 1937^9, Noormarkku. AlvarAalto Foundation/Alvar Aalto Museum, Jyvaskyla/photoE. Makinen.

139. Alvar Aalto. Villa Mairea, 1937^9, Noormarkku. Ground-floor plan. Alvar Aalto Foundation/Alvar Aalto Museum,

Jyvaskyla.140. Alvar Aalto. Town Hall, 1949-52, Saynatsalo. Alvar AaltoFoundation/Alvar Aalto Museum, Jyvaskyla/Photo

M. Kapanen.141. Alvar Aalto. Vuoksenniska church, 1957^9, Imatra. AalvarAalto Foundation/ Alvar Aalto Museum, Jyvaskyla/photoM. Kapanen.142. Pekka Pitkanen. Funeral Chapel, 1967, Turku. Museum ofFinnish Architecture, Helsinki/photo Arvo Salminen.143. Constant. New Babylon: Group of Sectors, 1959. Collotypeand ink, 57 x 68 cm. Gemeentemuseum, TheHague/Beeldrecht Amstelveen/© DACS 2002.144. Le Corbusier. Model, Obus A. Project for Algiers, 1933.© Fondation Le Corbusier (1,1(1)63), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP,Paris and DACS, London 2002.

145. Le Corbusier. Obus A Project for Algiers, 1933.© Fondation Le Corbusier (14345), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP,Paris and DACS, London 2002.146. Le Corbusier. Obus E Project for Algiers, 1939.© Fondation Le Corbusier (14594) Paris. © FLC/ADAGP,Paris and DACS, London 2002.147. Le Corbusier. Capitol, 1956, Chandigarh. © Fondation LeCorbusier (5162), Paris. © FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS,London 2002.148. Le Corbusier. The Secretariat, 1951-63, with the StateAssembly Building in the foreground, Chandigarh. Photo AlanColquhoun.149. Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, and others; consultant LeCorbusier. Ministery of Education and Public Health,1936-45, Rio de Janeiro. RIBA Photographs Collection,London.150. Liicio Costa. Brasilia Masterplan, 1957. From N. Evenson,Two Brazilian Capitals (Yale University Press, 1972), fig. 154.151. Alison and Peter Smithson. Urban Reidentification,

1959-152. Georges Candilis, Alexis Josic and Shadrach Woods. FreeUniversity, 1964-79, Berlin.153. Aldo van Eyck. Orphanage, 1957-60, Amsterdam.154. Piet Blom andjoop van Stigt. Village of Children, 1962.155. Kenzo Tange. Tokyo Bay Project, 1960. Kenzo TangeAssociates, Tokyo.156. Arata Isozaki. Joint Core Stem system, 1960. Arato Isozaki&, Associates, Tokyo.157. Archigram. Plug-in City, 1964.158. Yona Friedman. L'Urbanisme Spatiale, 1960-2.159. Constant. New Babylon (1959-): view of New BabylonianSectors, 1971. Watercolour and pencil on photomontage,135 x 223 cm. Gemeentemuseum, The Hague/BeeldrechtAmstelveen/© DACS 2002.160. Mies van der Rohe. Seagram Building, 1954-8, New York.Photo © Angelo Hornack Library, London.161. Pierre Koenig. Case Study House 21,1958, Los Angeles.Photo ©Julius Shulman, Los Angeles.162. Charles and Ray Eames. Case Study House 8,1945-9,Pacific Palisades. Photo ©Julius Shulman, Los Angeles.163. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Lever House, 1951-2, NewYork. Photo © Angelo Hornack Library, London.164. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. US Air Force Academy,1954-62, Colorado Springs. Chicago Historical Society/photoHedrich-Blessing.165. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Union Carbide Building,1957-60, New York. © Esto, Mamaroneck, NY/photo EzraStoller.166. Eero Saarinen. General Motors Technical Center, 1948-56,Warren, Michigan. © Esto, Mamaroneck, New York/photoEzra Stoller.167. Mies van der Rohe. Preliminary scheme, Illinois Instituteof Technology, 1939, Chicago. Aerial perspective. Pencil, contecrayon on illustration board, 101.5 x I29-5 cm- The Mies van derRohe Archive, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift ofthe Architect. © 2001 The Museum of Modern Art, New York.©DACS 2002.168. Mies van der Rohe. Alumni Hall, Illinois Institute of

280 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Technology, 1945–6. Chicago Historical Society/photoHedrich-Blessing.169. Mies van der Rohe. Seagram Building, 1954–8, New York.Photo © Angelo Hornack Library, London.170. Mies van der Rohe. Seagram Building, 1954–8, New York.I-beam mullions from J. Joedicke, Office Buildings (London:Crosby Lockwood & Sons, 1962; r/1968 Penguin Books),fig. 268.171. Eero Saarinen. TWA Terminal, JFK Airport, 1956–62,New York. © Esto, Mamaroneck, NY/photo Ezra Stoller.172. Edward Durrell Stone. US Embassy, 1954, New Delhi,India. Photo Alan Colquhoun.173. Louis Kahn. Adler House, 1954–5, Philadelphia. Plan.© 1977 Louis I. Kahn Collection, University ofPennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and MuseumCommission.174. Louis Kahn. Jewish Community Center, 1954–9, Trenton.Plan. © 1977 Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of

Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and MuseumCommission.175. Louis Kahn. Richards Medical Research Laboratories,University of Pennsylvania, 1957–65, Philadelphia. Photo GrantMudford, Los Angeles.176. Louis Kahn. Plan, First Unitarian church, 1961, Rochester,New York. © 1977 Louis I. Kahn Collection, University ofPennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and MuseumCommission.177. Louis Kahn. National Assembly Building, 1962–83, Dhaka.The Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Geneva/photo Reha Gunay.178. Louis Kahn. National Assembly Building, 1962–83, Dhaka.© 1977 Louis I. Kahn Collection, University of Pennsylvaniaand the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

The publisher and author apologize for any errors or omissionsin the above list. If contacted they will be pleased to rectify theseat the earliest opportunity.

list of illustrations 281

Index

Note: references to illustrations andcaptions are in italic. There may also betextual references on the same pages.

Alto, Alvar 200,207,202,2oj, 20^, 205Activist literary movement 95Adams, Henry 43Addams,Jane5oAdler House, Philadelphia 248,250Adler, Dankmar j^, jj, 38,40,41,42AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitats-

Gesellschaft) 68Pavilion, Shipbuilding Exposition,

Berlin 64,65prospectus 65Turbine Factory, Berlin56,57,65,66,

67,69,77AFK (Arbeitsrat fur Kunst) 95-6,99,159Ahlsen, Eric and Tore 197,198Albers, Josef 161,162Albini, Franco 188Algiers 209,2/0,2/7,212All Union Society of Proletarian

Architects (VOPRA) 135Alliance for German Applied Arts 58Alpine Architektur 97Altenberg, Peter 74Amsterdam School 89,109, noAmsterdam Stock Exchange 24anarchism 18,61,95Andersen, Hendrik92~3Andre, Emile 23Appia, Adolphe 6j, 64,103Arbeitsrat fur Kunst seeAFKArchigram group 225,226Architectura et Amicitia group 24Architectural League of America,

Chicago 51,52Architekton72jArp, Hans 160Art Education Movement 58Art Nouveau 13-33: $^tf/$0Jugendstil

in Austria 26-32in Belgium 18-21,25in France 16-18,21-3

in Germany 32-3in Holland 24in Spain 24-6

Art Nouveau gallery, U 22Arts and Crafts 13-14,15,19-20,50,51,

58,62Arvatov, Boris 125Ashbee, Charles Robert 28,29ASNOVA (Association of New

Architects) 122,127^8Asplund, Erik Gunnar 194,795Association for Organic Architecture

186Astengo, Giovanni 186-7Athens Charter 218-19,229Atwood, Charles B. jp, 45Auditorium Building, Chicago j^, jj, 38,

39,4iAustria

Academy of Fine Arts(Wagnerschule) 104-5

Art Nouveau in 26-32Avenarius, Ferdinand 58axonometry777,118

Backstrom, Sven 796,197Balla, Giacomo 100Banham, Reyner 161Barcelona International Exposition

(1929) 75<?, 759,176,777Bartning, Otto 95,166Baudelaire, Charles 16Bauer, Catherine 231,232Bauhaus 96,160-3, f^4

Manifesto 160,767Baumann, Paul 194Bayer, Herbert 162Bazel,K.PC.24

Behne, Adolf 68,89,93,95,159-60,166,169,253

Behrens, Peter 32,56,57,58,62,64-7,69,

76>77>I37Belgiojoso, Lodovico 188Belgium

Art Nouveau in 18-21,25

Arts and Crafts movement 19-20Bellamy, Edward 49Belluschi, Pietro 239Bennett, E. H. 46,48,49Bentsen, Ivar 194Berenguer, Francesc 25Berg, Max 165Bergson, Henri 99Berlage, Hendrick Petrus 24,25,81, no,

165,180Berlin Free University 220Bernhard, Karl 65Bezard, Norbert 155Biedermeier 29-30Bing, Siegfried (Samuel) 22Bio-Mechanical Theatre 726Blaue Reiter group 87^8Blom,Piet222Blomstedt, Aulis 205Boccioni, Umberto 100,707,103,105,

706,107, inBogdanov (Alexandr Malinovsky) 120Bois, Yve-Alain inBosselt, Rudolf 59Botticher, Karl 17BPR (Belgiojoso, Peressutti, Rogers)

188,189Bracquemond, Felix 15,17Brandt, Marianne i6jBrasilia 213,214,216,277Breuer, Marcel 126,162Brick Country House 772,773,174,176Brinkman, Johannes 118,779Briicke group 87 -8Bryggmann, Erik 200,201,205Bund Heimatschutz58Burgerweeshuis Orphanage,

Amsterdam 220,227Burnham, Daniel 37,38,39,43,44,45,48,

49Burnham and Co. J9,46,47

Caccia-Dominioni, Luigi 188Cacciari, Massimo 76Camini, Aldo see van Doesburg, Theo

282

Candilis, Georges 219,220Carpenter Center, Harvard ijiCarra, Carlo 100Casa del Fascio, Como 184,185Casa Vicens 25Case Study House Program, Los

Angeles 233-7House 212j6

Castel Beranger, Paris 23Celsing, Peter 198,199ceramics 77Chambless, Edgar 209Chambon, Alban 21Chandigarh 213,214,215,216-17Chapel of the Colonia Giiell 26Chicago School 36-43Chicago 35-55

City Beautiful movement 46-9city plan 46,48,49social reform 49-51World's Columbian Exposition 43-6,

49Chtchegloff, Ivan see Ivain, Gilleschurches 199-200CIAM (Congres Internationaux

d'Architecture Moderne) 217-18Cingria-Vaneyre, Alexandre 156Cite de Refuge, Paris /jj, 154Citrohan House 143-4,145,146,236-7Citta Nuova, La 103,104City Beautiful movement 46-9classicism

Germany 64,65versus organicism 35-55

COBRA group 227Colomina, Beatrix 82Comite central des beaux-arts appliques

a 1'industrie 14Composition i with Red, Yellow and

Blue 112Comte, Auguste 16Concrete Country House 162,772,173,174Concrete Office Building 180Congres Internationaux d'Architecture

Moderne see CIAMCongress of International Progressive

Artists, Diisseldorf 160Constant (Nieuwenhuys, Victor E.) 2o#,

209,226,227,22#, 229Constructivism 121,126-7,r^0

in Finland 204-7First Working Group 122,123,124-5,

128,180and Rationalism 122-6

Constructivist Congress, Weimar 160contextualism 187-9Conway Building, Chicago 46,47Cook, Peter 225

Coonley House, Riverside 53,5 ,55corporate office building 237-42corporatism, critique of 245-6Costa, Lucio 214,2/6,2/7,239Counter-constructions /o#, 7/7,118Craig, Gordon 103Cubism 100Cuijpers, Petrus Josephus Herbertus 24Culture House complex, Stockholm 198Cuno House, Hagen-Eppenhausen 65

Dada 98-9Dalcroze Institute, Hellerau 62,6jDaly, Cesar-Denis 15Dammerstock Estate, Karlsruhe 165,166Darmstadt artists' colony 64Dawes Plan 163de Carlo, Giancarlo 188-9De Chirico, Giorgio 183DeDubbeleSleutel//^De Stijl 109-18,139Debord, Guy 227decorative arts 15,19,27,113,138Dermee, Paul 138Destree, Jules 18-19Deutscher Werkbund 13-14,53,58-9,137Diamond Workers' Building,

Amsterdam 24Dichter, Ernst 246Domenech i Montaner, Lluis 24-5Dom-ino frame 143,144,149Doom Group see Team XDow, Arthur Wesley 51Dresden Technische Hochschule 58Dresdner Werkstatte 58Drew, Jane 214Dubois, Max 138,143Durerbund 58Diisseldorf School 65Dynamism of a Speeding Horse +

Houses /o/

£42 Exposition see EUREames House 236-7Eames, Charles 234,235-6,2J7Eames, Ray 234,236,2J7Edelman, John H. 41,232Effort Moderne gallery, L' 115Ehrenburg, Ilya 128Einfuhlung (empathy) 88Eisler,Max32Eliot, Charles 46,49Eliot, Hans 195-6Ellwood, Craig 235Emerson, Ralph Waldo 41Endell, August 32Entenza, John 234-6Entenza House 235-6

Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse 28Esprit Nouveau 138-40,141,156EUR, Rome (£42 Exposition, 1942) 185Exhibition Building 97Exhibition for Unknown Architects

96-8Exhibition of Contemporary

Architecture, Moscow (1927) 132Exhibition of Soviet Art (1922) 160Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, Paris

(1925) 72J, 7J7, 141Expressionism 87^99

and architecture 89-95and Dada 98-9and politics 95-6

Fagus Factory 69-71Fascism 183,184,185Feininger, Lyonel 767Fiedler, Conrad 59,88Figini, Luigi 184Finch, Willy 19fine arts movement 19,121,123-4Finland, Modern Movement in 200-7Finsterlin, Hermann 97First Unitarian Church, Rochester 257,

252Fischer, Theodor 58,137Forbat, Fred 166France, Art Nouveau in 16-18,21-3Frederick, Christine 165Free Workshops see VkhutemasFriedman, Yona 226,227Frosterus, Sigurd 200Friilicht 90,98Fry, Maxwell 214Fuchs, Georg 64Fuller, Richard Buckminster 234,249-50functionalism 169-70furniture 18,24, j2,33,50,78-9Futurism 87,99-107

and architecture 100-7and Cubism 100

G (G: Material zur ElementarenGestaltung) 173

Galle, Emile 15,23Gan, Alexei 121,123,124Gardella, Ignazio 189Garden City, Hohensalza 62Garden City movement 61-2,90-1,149,

206,231Gaudi i Cornet, Antoni 25,26Geddes, Patrick 231-2Gemeinschaft'tf, 159General Motors Technical Center,

Michigan 2^0,241George, Henry 49

INDEX 283

Germany 57,69,138Art Nouveau in 32-3Deutscher Werkbund 13-14,53,58-9,

137social housing 163-9

Gesellschaftsj, 159

Gesfa!fS9Giedion, Siegfried 36,149,213,214,217,

248Gillman, Charlotte Perkins 50Ginsburg, Moisei 127,129, /jo, 133Gipsoteca Canoviana, Possagno /&, 183,

189Glaserne Kette group 98Glass Pavillion, Werkbund Exhibition,

Cologne 91,92Goetheanum, Dornach 95,96Golosov, Ilya 127,131Golyscheff, Jefim 98,99Graf, Werner 173Great Exhibition of Industry of all

Nations (1851) 14Gregotti, Vittorio 187Gropius, Walter 60,165,166,767,247

and AFK 89,95,96

and Bauhaus 160-3,7^> J8iFagus Factory 68-71

Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin 93Gruppo 7:184-5Gruppo Toscana 184

Gubler, Jacques 180Guerin, Jules 48, 49

Guild of Handicraft, London 28Guimard, Hector 22Gullichsen, Maire 202Guevrekian, Gabriel 144

Hablik,Wenzel97Haesler, Otto 165,166Hamilton, Richard 246Hansen, Per Albin 195Haring, Hugo 166,170

Harrison, Wallace 239Hartlaub, Gustav 159Haus des Himmels 90Hausmann, Raoul p#, 99Havana Cigar Shop 79Hebrard, Ernst 92-3Heimatschutz movement 169Hellerau 62-4Henard, Eugene 149Hertzberger, Herman 222Higher State Artistic and Technical

Workshops see VkhutemasHighland Parkj2,5jHilberseimer, Ludwig 127Hildebrand, Adolf 88Hill House 29

Hiller, Kurt 95Hitchcock, Henry Russell 36,231Hoffmann, E.T. A. 82Hoffmann, Josef 28-9, jo, j7, 32,58,73,

78,81,115Holabird, William 38-9Holland 24,122

avant-garde in 109-20Homo Ludens 225-9Hoppe, Emil 106Horta, Victor 72, 7j, 20,21Hotel Solvay 20-1Hotel Van Eetvelde, Brussels 72, /j, 20,

21,24,25House for an Art Lover 29, jo, j2housing 24,217

in America 231-2,233-7Case Study House Program 233-7

Darmstadt 29, joDiisseldorf/d#in England 79,81in Finland 206-7in France 81in Germany 163-9Le Corbusier 209-12Loos 79-84in Sweden 194,195-6

Howe, George 212-13,248Hubbe House 177, ij8Hull House 50,51,53Hiilsenbeck, Richard 98-9Hulten, Pontius 198Humbert de Romans concert hall, Paris

23Hunt, Myron 51Huszar, Vilmos no, in, //j, 114

Idealism 41,179-81Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago

242,243

INA Casa (Institute of HomeInsurance)186,188

individualism 245-6

industrial art 14-15,19,121,123-4Industrial Arts Exhibition, Stockholm

(1930) 194,195industrial capitalism 14

Industrial Revolution 13,14-15Inkhuk (Moscow Institute of Artistic

culture) 121-2lofan, Boris 134,135Isozaki, Arata 223,225Italy 184-5,186Itten, Johannes 160-1Ivain, Gilles (Chtchegloff, Ivan) 228

Jackson Park, Chicago 43-4,45Court of Honor 44,45,46

Jacobsen, Arne 194Jeanneret, Charles Edouard see Le

CorbusierJeanneret, Pierre 141,142,155,214Jenney, William Le Baron 38Jewish Community Center, Trenton

249,25J

JFK Airport, New York 247Johnson, Philip 231Joint Core Stem system 223,225Jones, Owen 14Josic, Alexis 219,220Jourdain, Francis 141

Jugendstil 28,32-3,64,65,69,70,89

Kahn, Louis 46,248-54,248,249,250,2J/, 252, 25J

Kandinsky, Wassily inKant, Immanuel59Karntner Bar, Vienna 72,7j, 79Kepes, Georgy 246Kikutake, Kiyonori 223,225Kimball, Fiske 36,46Klerk, Michel de noKlimt, Gustav 29Koenig, Pierre 235,236Kokoschka,Oskar£SKraus, Karl 74,76Kromhaut, W. 24Kropotkin, Pyotr 95Kultury)

Kunsfwo/ten 89

Ladovsky, Nikolai 121,722Lagardelle, Hubert 154Lamour, Philippe 154Langbehn, Julius 57Laugier, Abbe Marc-Antoine 37Lauweriks, J. L. M. 24,64

Le Corbusier jo, 137^57,223Algiers project 209,270,277,212Athens Charter 218brise-soleil (sun-breakers) 210,277,

216Chandigarh 213,27^, 275,216-7and L'Esprit Nouveau 138-9'Five Points of a New Architecture'

146-9housing 7jd, 146,147,148,755,209-12Maison Citrohan 143-4,7^5,146,

236-7objet-type 214and Pavilion de L'Esprit Nouveau

140-1,7^2pilotis 750,757,216

public buildings 747,752,153-4Regional Syndicalism 154-7and reinforced-concrete frame 142-6

284 INDEX

Unite d'Habitation, Marseilles 211-12,

219,253urbanism 209-12

Le Ricolais, Robert 249-50Ledoux, Claude-Nicolas 131Leger, Fernand 213L'Enfant, Pierre Charles 46Lenin 126-7Lenin Institute of Librarianship 132Leonidov, Ivan 131, 7j2,133Les XX painters' group 19Lessing House 772, 7/j, 174Lettrist International 228Lever House, New York 238,239Lewerentz, Sigurd 792, /pj, /pp, 200Libera, Adalberto 184Libre Esthetique 19,21,33Lichtwark, Alfred 58Lissitzky, El 123,128,160,173,179-80Little Houses with Illuminated Roofs 98London Town Planning conference

(1910)49Loos, Adolf 73-85,140-1

critical reception 84-5decorum 75-7furniture 78housing 79-84interiors 77^-9Raumplan 80,81,83-4

Looshaus, Vienna 76,77Lorch, Emil5iLuckhardt, Hans 169-70Luckhardt, Wassili 94,95,169-70Lunacharski, Commisar 121Lur$at, Andre 144Lutyens, Edwin 51

machine craft 53,59-61Mackintosh, Charles Rennie 29, jo, 32Magistretti, Ludovico 190Maison Citrohan 143-4,145,146,236-7Maison Coilliot 22,23Maison du Peuple, Brussels 19,21,24Maki, Fumihiko 223Malevich, Kasimir 122,123Malinovsky, Alexandr see BogdanovMallet-Stevens, Robert 144,145,146Mamontov, Sawa 120Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso 99-100,

/07,103Markelius, Sven 194Marshall Field Wholesale Store38materialism 179-81Matter, Herbert 234Maus, Octave 19May, Ernst 133,165,166-7Mayer, Albert 213-14McKim, Charles 46

Mebes, Paul 62,193Megastructure movement 222,223,

226-9,233Melnikov, Konstantin 129,7j7,132Mendelsohn, Erich 169-70Mentessi, Giuseppe 105Metabolists 223,226Meyer, Adolf 69,70Meyer, Erna 165Meyer, Hannes 133,180-1Meyerhold, Vsevolod 126Michelucci, Giovanni 189Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig &, 170-9

in America 2jo, 239,242-3,2^2,247,

244,245* 253in Germany 170-9

Mikkola, Kirmo 206Mills, C.Wright 246Milyutin, Nikolai 129,133Mock, Elizabeth 213Modern Movement 74

in Brazil 214CIAM 217 18in Finland 200-7in Germany 69in Sweden 195-200

Modernisme, Spain 24-6Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo 160-1Moller House, Vienna 81, &, 83MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) 231,

233Monadnock Building 39Mondrian, Piet no, in, 772,113Monument to the Third International

124Moreira, Jorge 214Morris, William 14,19,50,59,120Morris, Marshall, and Faulkner 14Moscow Institute of Artistic Culture

(Inkhuk) 121-2Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture,

and Architecture 121Moser, Karl 180Moser, Kolo 28Muche, Georg 162Muller House, Prague &>, 81,83,84Mumford, Lewis 36,231,232Munich Secession 64Muratori, Saverio 188Musee des Travaux Publics, Paris 143Museum Cafe, Vienna 79Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 51Muthesius, Hermann 58,59-61,62,68,

75Muzio, Giovanni 183-4

Nancy School 23Narkofim Housing, Moscow 129,7jo

National Assembly Building, Dhaka 251,252,253

Naturalism 16Naumann, Friedrich 58Neoclassicism, in Finland 200Neoplasticism in, 120,122Neorealism 186-7Neo-Syndicalism 154-7Neue Sachlichkeit see New ObjectivityNeutra, Richard 234,235New Academy (Vkhutemas studio) 131New Babylon 2o<9,209,226,227,22#, 229New Deal 232New Empiricism 196-7New Monumentality 212-13,218,248New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit)

159,165,169in Finland 200-1Nieuwe Sachlichkeit 120in Sweden 194

Newby, Frank 227Niemeyer, Oscar 214,276,223,239Nieuwenhuys, Victor E. see ConstantNovecento 183-4Novembergruppe 96Nowicki, Matthew 214Nuove Tendenze 101,103

objet-type 140,7^7,142,146

Obmas (United Workshops of the Left)121

Obrist, Hermann 32Okhitovitch, Mikhail 129Olbrich, Joseph Maria 28,29, jo, 58Olmsted, Frederick Law 43,44,45organicism 189-90

in Finland 201-4versus classicism 35-55

Organization for Proletarian Culture(Proletkult) 120,127

ornament 17^-18,42,75,165OSA (Union of Contemporary

Architects) 127 -9,133Osthaus, Karl Ernst 60Otlet, Paul 92-3Oud, J. J. P. no, 112-13, H4» H8> JI9-> I2o,

165Ouspensky, P. D. 122Owings, Nathaniel 237Ozenfant, Amedee 138,139

Pagano, Giuseppe 184,185Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatarium 200,

2O7, 2O2

Palace of Culture 132-3Palace of the Soviets (lofan) 134,135Palais Stoclet, Brussels 29, jo, 31Paris Metro 23

INDEX 285

Parsons, Talcott 246Parti Ouvrier Beige (POB) 18-19Pask, Gordon 227Passanti, Francesco 148Passerelli brothers 190Paul, Bruno 32-3,73,78,137People's Theatre 93,94,95Peressutti, Enrico 188Perkins, D wight H. 51Perret, Auguste 137,142,143Persico, Edoardo 184Petersen, Carl 194Piacentini, Marcello 184,185Piazza Meda office building, Milan 188Picard, Edmund 19Piccinato, Luigi 184Pietila, Reima 205pilotis 148, 750, 152,2/6,228,239Pitkanen, Pekka 205,206Plecnik,Joze83,io2Plug-in City 225,226POB (Parti Ouvrier Beige) 18-19Poelzig, Hans 93Poincare, Henri 169Pollini, Gino 184Popova, Lyubov 125,126Positivism 16Post Office Savings Bank, Vienna 27,28Prairie School 36,51-5Prampolini, Enrico 100Pravda 127,128prefabrication 197,232,234-5Price, Cedric 226,227production art see industrial artProletarian Council of Intellectual

Workers 95Proletkult (Organization for Proletarian

Culture) 121,127Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph 154Prouve, Jean 220

Quaroni, Ludovico 186, i8j, 190,191Quartiere Cepalle Barene di S. Giuliano,

Mestre 190,797

Radiant Village Cooperatif 155,756Rapson, Ralph 235Rationalism 121,122,169-70,189-90

and Constructivism 122-6in Finland 200,204-7in Italy 184-5,186

Raumplan 81Regional Syndicalism see Neo-

Syndicalismregionalism 201-4Reidy, Affonso 214Reinius, Lief 796,197Reliance Building, Chicago jp

Re veil, Viljo 205Richards Medical Research

Laboratories, University ofPennsylvania 250,251

Richardson, Henry Hobson 38,53Richter, Hans 160,172-3Ridolfi, Mario i86,7<?7Riegl, Alois 27Riehl House, Berlin 772,7/jRiemerschmid, Richard j2,33,62,73Rienhardt, Max 93Riesman, David 245-6Rietveld, Gerrit no, 118Rio de Janeiro 209,214,276,239Robie House, Chicago 53,5 ,55Roche, Martin 38-9Rodchenko, Alexandr 121,123,725Rogers, Ernesto 187,188Roh, Franz 159Romanticism 57,82,92,179Rookery Building, Chicago j/, 38Root, John Wellborn j/, 38,39,45Rosenberg, Leonce 115Roth, Emil 179-80Rousseau, Eugene 15,77Riiegg, Arthur 142Rufer House &?, 83Rundbogenstil 38Ruskin,Johni4Russia 120-35Russolo, Luigi 100Ruusuvuori, Aarno 205

S. Giovanni, Florence 189Saarinen, Eero 234,235-6,239,2^0,247,

242,2^7Saarinen, Eliel 200,236,239Sagrada Familia 25,26St Augustine 179Salons d'Automne 144,149Samona, Giuseppe 190Sant'Elia, Antonio 86,87,101,702,103,

70 , 105-7Sauvage, Henri 23,103Saynatsalo Town Hall 20^Scarpa, Carlo /&, 7 ,189Scharoun, Hans 166,770,777Scheerbart, Paul 92Scheu House, Vienna 79,8jSchindler, Rudolph 234Schinkel, Karl Friedrich 61Schmidt, Hans 179-80Schmidt, Karl 58Schminke House, Lobau 770,777Schoenmaeker, M. J. H. inSchool of Arts and Crafts, Diisseldorf 64School of Sacre Coeur, Paris 22Schroeder House, Utrecht 118

Schultze-Naumburg, Paul 58,169,193Schumacher, Fritz 58-9,165Schiitte-Lihotzky, Crete 165Schuyler, Montgomery 35-6,55Scott, M. H. Baillie 29,78,81Seagram Building, New York 244,245,

230,231Semenov, V. N. 133Semper, Gottfried 17Senate Park Commission 46Serrurier-Bovy, Gustave 19-20Sert, Josep Luis 213,248Severini, Gino 100Shaw, Howard Van Doren 51Shipbuilding Exposition, Berlin 64,65Shklovsky, Viktor 132Sichtbarkeit (pure visibility) 88Simmel, Georg 66,245Sitte, Camillo 28,62Situationist International 227^8Skidmore, Louis 237Small, Albion 49-50Smithson, Alison and Peter 218,279,220,

221-2Social Realism 135social reform movement 195-6Socialist Realism 132SOM (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill)

237, 238, 2J9, 2^0, 2^7, 242, 245, 247

Sonck, Lars 200Sonneveld House, Rotterdam 118,779Sorel, Georges 99,154SoriayMatai29Soriano, Raphael 235space 21,30,31,53,63,64,78,79,81,83,

101,118,149,174Spain

Art Nouveau in 24-6Barcelona International Exposition

75^,759,176,777Spatial Colour composition for a

Stairwell 77jSpencer, Robert C. 51St Mark s Church, Biorkhaven 792,79j,

799

Stam, Mart 126,167-8,179,7<?oStein, Clarence 231Steiner, Rudolf 95,96Stepanova, Varvara 121,123,125Sternkirche project 95Still Life (Le Corbusier) 7^7Stone, Edward Durrell2^7Stonorov, Oskar 231,232, 248Strengell, Gustav 200Stroganov School of Industrial Design

121structural rationalism 15Structuralism 197,222

286 INDEX

Stiibben, Joseph 49Sturm, DerS?, 88,89,92,99Sturm gallery, Berlin 87,88Sullivan, Louis j^,jj, 38,39,40,41,42,

43>5iSweden 194-200Swedenborg, Emanuel 16Swedish National Planning Board 197^8Symbolism 16Systems theory 220-2

Table + Bottle + Houses 106Tacoma Building 38-9Tafuri, Manfredo 190Talbot, Marion 50Tallmadge, Thomas 36Tange, Kenzo 223, 224, 225Tassel, Emile 20Tatlin, Vladimir 124Taut, Bruno 60, 82, 89-95, J66Taut, Max 90Taylor, Frederick Winslow 50Team X 218-19, 233, 253'Technical Manifesto of Futurist

Painting' 100Terragni, Giuseppe 184, 185Tessenow, Heinrich 61-4, 137, 193Tiburtino Housing Estate 186, 187Tokyo Bay Project 223, 224, 225Tonnies, Ferdinand 57Transcendentalism 41, 49Traum aus Glas 97Trotsky, Leon 127Tugendhat House 172, 775, 776, 177Turku Funerary Chapel 205, 206Typmerung (typification) 59-61, 71Tzara, Tristan 160

Union Carbide Building, New York 241Union centrale des arts decoratifs

(previously Union centrale desbeaux-arts appliques a 1'industrie)

HUnite d'Habitation, Marseilles 211-12,

219,253United Workshops of the Left (Obmas)

121University of Chicago 49-50urbanism 92, 129, 149, 152, 190-1, 217

Le Corbusier and 209-12

Urbanisme Spatiale 227US Air Force Academy, Colorado

Springs 240,247US Embassy, New Delhi 247

Valori Plastici movement 183van Bodegraven, Wim 222Van de Velde, Henry 7 , 79,21,22,60,68,

74,81Van der Leek, Bart no, in, 112,114Van der Vlugt, Leendert Cornells 118,

779van Doesburg, Theo (pseudonym: Aldo

Camini) no, in, 113,114-18,120,160,169

Counter-constructions 70<9,777,118cubic compositions 775,776

Van Eesteren, Cornelis 115,776Van Eyck, Aldo 218,220,227Van Nelle Factory, Rotterdam 118VanStigt,Joop222Vandervelde, Emile 18-19Van't Hoff, Robert noVantongerloo, Georges noVeblen, Thorstein 49Veillach, Joseph 78Vereinigten Werkstatten fur Kunst und

Handwerk33,58,62Verhaeren, Emile 16,19Vesnin, Alexander 121,127,128Vesnin, Viktor 128Vienna Academy of Fine Arts 28Vienna Secession (Wiener Sezession)

28,33Vienna Secession Exhibition (1902) 115Vigano, Vittoriano 190Viipuri Public Library 200Villa de Mandrot, Pradet 755Villa Favre-Jacot, La Chaux-de-Fonds

138Villa Henny, the Hague 24,25Villa Jeanneret, La Chaux-de-Fonds 138Villa Mairea, Noormarkku 202,2ojVilla Savoye, Poissy 148-9,750,757Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds 138Village of Children 222Ville Contemporaine 149,752,209Ville Radieuse 152Viollet-le-Duc, Eugene-Emmanuel 13,

15,79,81

Vischer, Robert 88Vkhutemas (Higher State Artistic and

Technical Workshops) 121,125,

131Vogel, Hans 775Volk 57,91,159Volkhaus 91VOPRA (All Union Society of

Proletarian Architects) 135Vorkurs 161Voysey, Charles Annesley 29Vuoksenniska Church, Imatra 204,205

Wachsmann, Konrad 249-50Wagenfeld, Wilhelm 163Wagner, Martin 165Wagner, Otto 27,28,76,103,70^, 705Wagnerschule 104-5Wainwright Building, St. Louis 39,40,

41,42Walden, Herwarth 92Ward Willits House, Highland Parkj2,

53Washington Park 43-4Webb, Michael 226,227Weissenburger, Lucien 2jWerkbund 64,74,91, p2Whyte, Iain Boyd 89Whyte, William H. 245-6Wiegand House, Berlin 65Wiener Sezession (Vienna Secession)

28Wiener Werkstatte 28,73Will-Levaillant, Fran9oise 140Wils, Jan no, 114, 115Wittwer, Hans 181Wolf House, Guben 172,77^, 175Woods, Shadrach 219,220World s Columbian Exposition

(Chicago World s Exhibition)

43-6,49Worringer, William 88-9Wright, Frank Lloyd 36,51-5,68,234Wright, Henry 231Wurster, William 235

Zevi, Bruno 186Zeilenbau 165Zivilisation 57,159Zueblin, Charles 49

INDEX 287

Arquitectura moderna-----autor----Alan colquhoun

Design

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